


The View from Here Isn't Better

by rabidbinbadger



Series: Series 11 [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angels, Angst, Coda, Episode: s11e11 Into the Mystic, M/M, Season/Series 11
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-31
Updated: 2016-06-29
Packaged: 2018-05-17 10:36:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 35
Words: 39,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5866147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rabidbinbadger/pseuds/rabidbinbadger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lucifer could put Castiel to sleep with almost no effort at all. It’d be the less risky option, he’d be unable to fight back, unable to try and resist. Unable to observe and understand any of Lucifer’s schemes and plots.</p><p>It would also be the kinder option.</p><p>Cas should have known better than to expect Lucifer to be kind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from [Zero Visibility](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BG-K_g3g7Ps) by Rise Against, because that line has been going around and around in my head since I saw the episode so I thought fuck it, I might as well write something tenuously based on it.
> 
> I have chosen not to tag certain things to avoid spoilers that would suck all the suspense from the fic. If you suspect something might be coming that would upset you, check if I have marked the chapter with "see endnotes for warnings" and check those warnings. I will more than happily add anything you deem upsetting to the endnote warnings, I will not add it to the tags.

 

  


Lucifer could put Castiel to sleep with almost no effort at all. It’d be the less risky option, he’d be unable to fight back, unable to try and resist. Unable to observe and understand any of Lucifer’s schemes and plots.

It would also be the kinder option.

Cas should have known better than to expect Lucifer to be kind.

Apparently the giddy joy at being free to walk the earth once again isn’t quite enough to outweigh the bitter fury of an apocalypse thwarted.

There’s no rest for Castiel, no slumber. No quiet. He went into this hoping for some kind of peace. Not death, perhaps, but sleep. Just a chance to rest and not have to mull over what he’s done. A pause, where he didn’t have to deal with the consequences of his actions.

And if that pause just kept going, on and on and on and on. Well, death or slumber, really, it’s all the same to an angel. They were never designed to be switched off. They can’t really tell the difference until they come out the other side.

If they come out the other side.

But Cas hasn’t been switched off, even though he could be. Lucifer doesn’t need him awake. Sure, he can’t kill Cas if he wants to keep this body– this isn’t Lucifer’s vessel, not even slightly. He needs Cas around to patch over the cracks, keep things oiled up and stop things from bursting out, but Cas could do that without being conscious - just by his presence.

But where’d be the fun in that?

“It’s only good for me, if it’s bad for you. That’s how this works.” Lucifer taunts Cas with his own voice, mutters under his breath as he wanders through a park, seemingly chosen at random, but not so. There are no coincidences when Lucifer takes the helm.

He feeds the ducks, because he can, watches some children play on the swings. Mostly he waits, ignoring Cas’s bitter sniping about how he didn’t grant Lucifer this body for him to take it sightseeing.

Cas twigs what’s happening just as Lucifer stands and meanders into the trees, towards a secluded spot, whistling and merry.

_Lucifer, you can’t._

_I can._ Lucifer thinks, smugly. It’s less fun talking to Cas from the inside. Their thoughts still sound different, like the stolen voices of their longest running vessels. Nick and Jimmy. It’s much better when Lucifer sounds like Cas, reminding him with every poisonous little word what’s happened here.

Cas tries so hard to wrest back control of his vessel, bless. Lucifer toys with him while they’re walking, grants a little bit of hope, and then wrenches it back and confronts Ophiel.

Lucifer waxes some lyrical bullshit about missing the trees, makes a half-assed, token effort at convincing his once brother that they’re on the same side. He isn’t trying to convert, he’s just trying to draw it out, make this last as long as possible. He’s enjoying listening to Cas’s muffled screams of denial.

Despite himself, Lucifer is a little fascinated. After everything Castiel has endured at the hands of the host, some of it very recent and hideous, he still doesn’t want any more of them to die.

So, of course, that’s the first thing Lucifer does while he’s wearing Cas's body.

And it is _delicious._

Lucifer takes great joy in inflicting suffering, of course. He’s the devil, it’s kinda in the job description. But this. This. It’s been a long time since he’s taken a proper vessel, and an even longer one since he deliberately set out to torture one. He’d forgotten how good it feels to taste the agony in every pore, instead of just watching it from a distance.

He makes a snarky little quip, licks bloody goop off his fingers. It just tastes like molecules, maybe  a little sulphuric aftertaste – but he’s never been sure whether that’s real or just a phantom taste of hell leaking out onto his stolen tongue.

But the taste is not the point. The point is the reaction it gets.

He’s having so much _fun._

 

*

 

_What are you doing here?_

“Research.”

_On what?_

Lucifer rolls his eyes. “Amara. Or have you forgotten why you let me out here in the first place…”

_We’ve already—_

“Hey! Cas!”

Cas tries so hard not to react to the sound of Dean’s voice. Bless. Like he can hide anything from Lucifer. Like Lucifer doesn’t know exactly what’s going on here, hasn’t raked through Cas’s hopes and desires and fears and seen one person occupying the prime spot in all three.

Like Lucifer doesn’t know that the quickest, most effective way to eviscerate Cas would be to go for Dean Winchester.

_Don’t worry, Castiel. I’m not going to kill him._

_Don’t you dare—_

_That would be easy. Quick. I’ve got a much more interesting idea._

_What—_

_I’m going to take all that love he has for you—_

_Don’t lie._ Ooh, the bitterness.

_I’m the devil, Castiel. I can read human emotions like you can read enochian._

_Shut up!_

_I’m going to take all that love I can feel, so much his fragile little shell can barely contain it—_

_SHUT UP_

_—bursting at the seams and pulsing out, and I’m going to twist it and corrupt it and debase it until there’s nothing but hate._

There’s silence from Cas’s end, but Lucifer can feel him desperately trying not to believe what he’s just heard, arguing with himself and throwing up proof after proof that Dean doesn’t care about him. Or at least not like that. Lucifer toys with him, dredges up every scrap of evidence to the contrary he can find. Every indulgent smile, every self-sacrificing gesture.

And then he stops, does the angelic possession equivalent of grabbing Cas by the chin and forcibly turning his head towards Dean, giving him no choice but to look, and listen.

Because Dean thinks he’s talking to Cas, and he’s admitting one of his darkest little secrets. Something he’s denied – lied directly and indirectly about. Something he hasn’t even told Sam.

He’s tried to kill Amara and failed, not once, but twice.

And it only gets worse from there.

Dean doesn’t just confess his failure. He confesses something so much worse than that. Something so much deeper and more difficult. The kind of thing that’d usually have to be dragged bloodily from between his teeth.

But not this time. He just lets it out, as if it’s as easy as that.

And Cas tells himself that doesn’t mean anything. Lucifer is a skilled manipulator, that’s the only reason Dean is letting slip this jagged truth. If Cas had been in control of his own tongue, the conversation wouldn’t have progressed like this. The who Dean thinks he’s confessing to is not the key factor here, it’s the who he _is_ confessing to.

Cas isn’t fooling anyone. Not himself, not Lucifer.

He listens, trapped inside his own body, as Dean admits that Amara has a hold over him, calls it an attraction (and Cas knows Lucifer suggested that word on purpose, to wound), one that terrifies him. Dean admits his fear – his weakness – to the one person he trusts to know it. Not realising that Cas isn’t the only one listening.

_Listen to that. He trusts you so, so much._

_Lucifer—_

_Watch me break him with it._


	2. Chapter 2

It’s been two weeks and a day since Dean last heard from Cas. And he doesn’t know that because he’s counting, it’s just he remembers because it was while they were doing the banshee case, and yeah. Look, Cas is his friend, he’s allowed to be worried for him.

Really, really fucking worried.

So when Dean’s phone starts ringing and it’s Cas’s name on the screen, he’s so relieved he can barely fucking breathe. Cas is alive, and not, y’know, vaporised by Amara, or torn to bits by some random monster or carved up by angels or in the clutches of any of the fifty fucking thousand things that have it out for the guy.

Seriously, dude makes enemies like Dean makes waffles. (And whose fault is that? A treacherous, and quickly suffocated, little voice nags.)

“Cas?” He answers, tries not to come across too frantic.

“Dean.” Cas sounds winded, out of breath.  “I need you to… Burnt Oak. I’ll send you the address.”

And he cuts the call before Dean can get another fucking word in.

Dean gets from zero to outright fear in less than a second. That was not a social call, that was an _I hope you get here before my insides become my outsides_ call. Sam’s out on one of his stupid fucking three hour runs – they’re getting longer each day and Dean’s starting to wonder what the fuck it is he’s running from. Backup is always good, but Dean decides he doesn’t have time to piss away driving around in circles looking for him, so he leaves a brief note: ‘Cas called. Gone to Burnt Oak.’

And yeah okay, that explains less than nothing, but lets face it, by the time Sam gets the message it’ll be way too late for him to do anything helpful, and there’s no point distressing him in the meantime.

Dean is loath to admit it, but, well, he’s noticed a bit of a change in Sam recently, and it worries him. The whole tragic martyr with no future crap ain’t a good look on anyone. Formerly optimistic, Sam ‘I’m gonna get out of this life one day’ Winchester, especially.

 

*

 

Dean makes the forty minute drive in half that, probably picks up a dozen speeding tickets on the way but he’ll be fucked if he cares about that. He’s way too busy picturing all the things that could be happening to Cas right now.

Last Dean knows, Cas was after intel on Amara, and fuck. Dean remembers the last conversation they had, when he confessed to Cas that he couldn’t make himself kill her. What if Cas decided to try and take her on his own, so Dean wouldn’t have to? It’s exactly the sort of bullshit self-sacrificing move he’d pull.

He double parks the Impala outside the address – two up two down house, little bit ramshackle – and, deciding to forgo subtlety, he kicks the door down.

“Dean?” He hears Cas’s voice, fucking runs for it. He finds him in the kitchen, slumped on the floor, against the fridge, surrounded by bodies.

Dean ignores the carnage, kneels down in front of him, to check for injuries.

Cas smiles up at him, a little dazedly, like he’s lost too much blood and isn’t quite in the room.

“Dean.” He says, in a tone of such wonder. “You came.”

“Course I did, buddy. Course I did.” Dean manages a shaky smile, but the way Cas is acting and the amount of blood on his shirt, it’s not reassuring.

Cas reaches a hand up and Dean tries to swat it away, tell him to save his energy, but then it’s cupping his cheek and Cas is looking up at him with this mixture of relief and joy and something else. Something which Dean won’t give a name to, because he knows it’s just wishful fucking thinking. He’s just reading his stupid crap into Cas’s perfectly innocent affection for a friend.

And anyway, when they’re bleeding out in front of you is not the best time to be pining over the object of your fucking unrequited love. Nut up, Winchester.

“Cas, you gotta tell me what happened, where are you hurt?”

“You came.” Cas whispers again, and Dean’s heart lurches in his chest. Like there was any chance he wouldn’t come when Cas asked. Like there was any fucking chance.

And Dean doesn’t want to be brutal, but this is about Cas’s safety. He grabs Cas’s hand, pulls it away from his face and jerks at it to get Cas’s attention.

“Cas! C’mon buddy, stay with me, ‘kay? I need you to tell me where you’re hurt worst.”

Something of the worry in Dean’s tone must get through this time, because Cas frowns a little, like he’s thinking about it, and then points vaguely to a bloody tear in his shirt.

Dean rips the shirt off, and sure enough, there’s a deep slash bisecting Cas’s stomach. There’s the faintest blue tingle of grace licking at the edges of the wound like smoke, but Dean doesn’t think it’s life threatening, he just doesn’t know why it’s not healing.

He uses Cas’s shirt to staunch the wound, hoping that’ll at least stop the bleeding.

“Cas, buddy, why aren’t you healing? Do I need to stitch this up?”

“Sigil.” Cas groans.

“There’s a sigil?”

Cas grunts, and Dean can’t tell whether he’s agreeing or not. The dazed expression is slipping now, and he’s grimacing as though in a lot of pain and fuck if Dean’s got this far just to lose him now.

“Where’s the sigil?”

Cas doesn’t reply so Dean goes for drastic measures, he takes Cas’s face in his hands, forces him to make eye contact. “Cas, where’s the sigil.”

Still no answer, and just as Dean is thinking he’s gonna have to fucking bridal carry a half-dead, bloodied dude out into the street in full daylight, Cas groans out, “door.”

Dean runs over to the door he came in through, but there’s no sigil visible.

“This one, Cas?”

Cas nods hazily, grimacing at the pain the movement causes. Dean swears, examining it again. Still nada. And then he realises what a fucking moron he’s being, shuts the door so he can see the other side.

Yahtzee.

He doesn’t stop to examine it, just slashes his knife through it.

The moment the wood splinters he hears Cas heave out a huge, relieved breath and he runs back over.

“You gonna be okay now?”

Cas nods, already looking a little less pale.

“I’ll need to rest, but I’ll be fine shortly. Thank you, Dean.”

“Hey, any time, buddy.” There’s a pause in which Dean tries so hard to resist scolding Cas, but he can’t help it, it just blurts out. “What the fuck were you doing on your own, man? You nearly died!”

Cas mumbles something unintelligible. Dean frowns at him and he repeats it, louder.

“I didn’t want to contact you until I had something concrete about Amara.”

“Why the hell not?!”

“I wanted to prove – prove to you that I can help, that I’m useful.”

Dean wants to tell Cas that his goddamn usefulness doesn’t matter. He’s family, and his ability to handle himself in a fight isn’t what makes him one of them. That’s not what comes out of his mouth though, ‘cause he’s fucking Dean Winchester and that’s not how this works.

“Yeah and you thought you’d be more useful to us dead?” Dean flinches at his own words, tries to claw them back. “That’s not what I meant. Dude, just, next time, ask us for help. That’s what we’re here for. Family, right?”

Cas nods slowly and Dean sighs, sits down beside him.

“So what the fuck happened here. Did Amara do this to you?”

Cas shakes his head slowly. “Demons. I was passing through and noticed the unusual number gathered in the area.”

“So you decided to investigate, on your own.” Dean’s tone is decidedly unimpressed. Cas ignores it.

“I tracked one of them back here, and was ambushed.”

“Those poor demons.”

Cas smiles, but that’s as far as he gets before there’s a crash from the front of the house.

Dean is on his feet in an instant, looks back at Cas, torn between wanting to pursue whoever that was, and not wanting to leave Cas alone.

“I’ll be fine now. Go!”

The demon doesn’t get far. Dean grabs it as it’s climbing into a car, snaps a set of devil’s trap handcuffs on – he never goes anywhere without a set nowadays – and drags the thing back into the house and to where Cas is.

“This one of them?” He asks.

Cas nods.

Dean slams it against a wall, holds Ruby’s knife to its throat.

“Why are you here?”

The demon snickers.

“Don’t make me cut it out of you.” Dean presses the blade a little harder.

“We’re waiting.” The demon finally says.

“Waiting for what?”

“For our master’s command.”

“Crowley?”

The demon snorts.

“Not that bureaucrat, the real master. Satan walks again.”

“Okay, now I know you’re talking crap. Lucifer’s locked up nice and tight in his cage.”

“He has been freed.” The demon insists, and Dean nearly rolls his eyes.

“Yeah, hilarious.”

“He has his vessel, everything is ready. He promised the vessel he’d deal with Amara _,_ but then—”

Dean plunges the blade in before it can finish talking, turns to Cas.

Cas studies his expression for a moment.

“You look worried.”

“You heard what it said.”

“You believe it?”

Dean shakes his head roughly. “It knew Amara’s name. But I don’t, I don’t think so. We did the spell, sealed him back in. Unless…”

“Unless?”

“Unless he was already in one of us.”

Cas looks at his hands.

“Dean, I’m going to ask you a very important question, and I need you to be honest with me.”

Dean braces himself, he should have known Cas’s suspicion would fall on him. He’s the weak link in the chain, the one who makes demon deals and sacrifices that end up going wrong.

It still stings, though, to know he’s about to get that from Cas.

“How has Sam been acting recently?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 2.5, Cas (and Lucifer's) POV, will be with you all tomorrow.


	3. Chapter 3

Lucifer feels Cas’s phone vibrate against his leg, fishes it out of his pocket and looks at it.

—Hey Cas, u alright? Haven’t heard in a bit getting kinda worried about u man.

“Isn’t that sweet.” Lucifer says, deletes the message.

_You could at least reply to him._

Lucifer snorts.

“And give either of you the satisfaction, I think not.”

 _Please._ Cas’s tone is flat, like he already knows the answer but feels like he has to at least try.

“I wonder how long before he decides you’re dead, comes hunting.”

_He wouldn’t. He has other concerns._

Lucifer actually laughs at that.

“You’re either oblivious, or an idiot.”

 

*

 

_What are you doing?_

“You’ll see.”

_How is this going to help with Amara?_

“Honey, we’re not dealing her now. This is about me.”

_We had a deal._

“There’s nothing I can do about her right now. Unless you’d rather I sat in a dark corner with your thumb up your ass until everything’s ready?”

Cas doesn’t reply, but Lucifer can feel him thinking mutinous thoughts. Well, he can knock himself out. He isn’t getting control back no matter how hard he sulks.

Lucifer teleports to a house in Burnt Oak, decides to kill the startled residents instead of knocking them out, just to hear Castiel’s cries of denial.

_Lucifer! Stop!_

Lucifer obligingly stops pushing his blade into the husband’s eye. If he presses further, the guy will die and be put out of his misery, leaving it like this is agonisingly painful, as both he and Castiel know.

“Let’s play a game, Castiel.” Lucifer says.

_No._

“Tell me to kill this man. Beg me to kill him.”

_I won’t._

“If you do, I’ll let the woman go. This would be a mercy, he’s in a lot of pain, and I’m sure this noble gentleman would be happy to lay down his life for that of his beloved. You’d know all about that, Castiel. Wouldn’t you?”

_Please._

“It’s your choice.”

Cas hesitates for a long moment, and Lucifer can feel the drawn out agony as he tries to come to a decision. He knows what the right thing to do is, but he can’t bring himself to say it.

_Fine! Do it._

“I want to hear you _say_ it.”

_Kill him._

Lucifer drives the blade clean into the husband’s brain, turns to the wife with a wicked smile and slits her throat too.

_NO!_

“Oops.”

_You said—_

“I’m the devil, Castiel. I say a lot of things. Sometimes I lie.”

Castiel goes quiet after that, which is a shame. Lucifer has come to really enjoy this second presence in his head. A live in torture puppet who he knows every last secret and fear of.

And if Castiel thinks this is bad, well, how does that song go – [the best is yet to come.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRRIUX1gJUc)

 

*

 

Lucifer summons six demons. Two go into the corpses of the murdered couple, for convenience and because he knows how uncomfortable it’ll make dear Castiel. The others take possession of the neighbours. He snuffs Castiel out for a moment – all the better to surprise him with later – and takes one of the demons aside, explains to it what is going to happen and exactly what it needs to do. It’s more than happy to oblige, still a little star struck at being in the presence of the literal devil. That’s good, Lucifer can work with that.

Once the messenger is out of earshot, Lucifer wakes up an unsuspecting Castiel and slaughters the other five demons. He feels Castiel perk up at that, as his hands use an angel blade for one of its purer purposes.

“You’re enjoying this.”

_I enjoy wiping your scum from the earth._

“Touchy.”

Once the demons are dead Lucifer lays them out, tries to make it look like there was some kind of fight instead of just an easy, brutal slaughter.

And then he manifests Castiel’s blade, scores a few shallow lines all over himself, and a deep one in his stomach. It won’t actually hurt either of them, but it’ll certainly look impressive.

He daubs a sigil, made up and meaningless, in his and Castiel’s blood on the door, and then he slumps to the ground, calls Dean Winchester.

 

*

 

Fear is roiling off Dean in thick, heady waves when he bursts through the door. Lucifer savours it for a moment, the hurt and the pain, and then focuses. He has a job to do here.

“Dean?” He calls out, hears Dean curse and come running.

And oh, god. It’s so much better than he anticipated. The look on Dean’s face is one thing, but Castiel’s reaction – Lucifer can feel it, an ache in the chest, deep and vicious, and all that just because of a look. It must be so tiring, being this angsty and miserable all the time. He honestly doesn’t know how they manage it.

 _Dean isn’t angsty and miserable._ Cas says, making no comment on his own mental state.

_Please. He’s looking at you like he isn’t sure whether to kiss you or break down in tears._

Lucifer ponders how to play this for a moment, decides to go for shocked disbelief. Like he didn’t actually expect Dean to come and rescue him from his untimely death.

 _Don’t do this, Lucifer._ Cas doesn’t know why he asks. Lucifer is going to do whatever he wants. That’s the price.

_You don’t know what I’m going to do._

_You’re looking at him like you love him. You’ll make him uncomfortable, he’ll send you away._

_I wonder what he’d do if I kissed him._

_No—_

_Would you like that? Feeling his lips under yours? Or would you be jealous that I stole your first kiss?_

_I released you. The least you could do in return is not be cruel for the sake of it._

_I’m the devil. That’s the job._

Lucifer raises his hand and cradles Dean’s cheek, dredges up every little drop of affection and love Cas has buried away in this body, repressed and squashed down and ignored, and tries to focus it into a single look.

And Dean doesn’t flinch, or look away. He mirrors it.

And Cas notices. Lucifer feels his heart lurch, first with joy, and then with pain so much worse than before. Because if that’s the case, if Dean did love him—

 _Oops. Looks like that unrequited love isn’t quite as unrequited as you thought._ Lucifer singsongs.

Cas can’t reply, his mind is sputtering to a halt, trying to deny. It’s not true, it’s not allowed to be true. It’d be so much worse, if it was.

And then the look is gone and suddenly Dean is all business again, fretting and fussing and making sure Cas’s injuries aren’t fatal.

Lucifer directs him to the sigil, finally allows his grace to start patching up the injury.

 _Cas-ti-ellll?_ He nudges in mocking tune, but the angel is still frozen, trying his hardest not to process what’s going on.

And then Dean asks why he went awol and Lucifer decides fuck it, he’s going to try and dig the knife in a little deeper, see if that gets Cas’s attention.

“I wanted to prove – prove to you that I can help, that I’m useful.”

“Yeah and you thought you’d be more useful to us dead?”

That’s disappointingly cold. And if Lucifer wasn’t currently doing his best to convince Castiel that Dean is in fact hugely in love with him, it’d be a nice blow. But it’s not. Lucifer looks at Dean with this hurt little expression, like Dean just confirmed his worst fears, and Dean flinches, tries to roll it back.

“That’s not what I meant. Dude, just, next time, ask us for help. That’s what we’re here for. Family, right?”

 Not perfect, but it’ll do. Family, from what Lucifer has seen in Castiel’s fucked up little head, is the highest recommendation you can receive from Dean.

And then, right on cue, the demon at the front door pretends to trip over something. Lucifer sends Dean after it, confident it’ll obey his orders and let itself be caught. Here’s hoping it isn’t one of the stupid ones, but he was very clear with his instructions.

The demon performs its duty perfectly, and then dies for its trouble. Good riddance. The less know Lucifer is risen and knocking around in Castiel’s body, the better, frankly.

_What are you doing?_

_You’ll see._

_If you hurt him—_

_Relax. I’ve already told you, I won’t harm him physically. Emotionally, well…_

 “You look worried.” Lucifer says to Dean.

“You heard what it said.”

“You believe it?”

Dean’s eyes are wide, slightly wild. “It knew Amara’s name. But I don’t, I don’t think so. We did the spell, sealed him back in. Unless…”

“Unless?” Lucifer asks, internally rubbing his hands with glee. He’s not even had to do any prompting yet. He expected to have to lead the conversation, but here Dean is connecting the dots all by himself. No wonder he’s Michael’s vessel. He could never see the grain of salt hidden in the sugar, either.

_Is this some sort of double bluff? What are you doing? We agreed we’d keep this secret._

_Maybe I want to see the hurt on his face when he realises you set the devil free because you were so depressed you couldn’t bear living anymore,_

_That’s not—_

“Unless he was already in one of us.”

Lucifer looks at his hands, tries to look as hesitant as possible, as though he’s almost scared.

“Dean, I’m going to ask you a very important question, and I need you to be honest with me.”

The look on Dean’s face is a treasure. He looks like a puppy in a blender, waiting for you to press the button and turn him into mulch.

“How has Sam been acting recently?”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No, I don't think the devil is a Kids in Glass Houses fan, I just linked to that song instead of the much more famous song called 'The Best Is Yet to Come' because the KIGH one contains the lyrics "the devil in your throat and in your thighs" and I couldn't help myself.


	4. Chapter 4

The shock silences Dean, and he can’t help but feel a treacherous pull of relief. Cas doesn’t think it’s him. Cas doesn’t think he’s the one fucking things up for the greater good – Cas trusts him.

And then what he said sinks in properly, and no. That’s not right, it can’t be. Because, Sam, he’s been acting a bit strangely recently, but there’s no way. He wouldn’t. He couldn’t say yes to Lucifer. Not again.

Could he?

Dean tries to voice these thoughts aloud, stumbles and trips over his own tongue, “Sam wouldn’t I – no. He couldn’t have.”

Cas nods slowly, reluctantly. Dean doesn’t like the expression on his face, it looks wounded – the same kind of expression he had when Dean kicked him out of the bunker. The same fucking expression that Dean vowed he’d never put on Cas’s face again and just look at him, breaking that promise already. He doesn’t even know what he said. Classic Dean fucking Winchester.

“I understand.” Cas says, solemn, fucking miserable.

“Understand what?” Dean’s getting a little frantic now. He hasn’t the faintest idea what Cas is talking about. He runs over what he said. All he can remember is something about how he doesn’t think Sam would say yes – nothing big, or controversial. The only thing he can think is maybe Cas is upset because he disagreed with him? That doesn’t seem like Cas – and even if he’d had a fucking personality transplant and suddenly that was a thing, this is a massive overreaction by anyone’s standards.

Cas still isn’t saying anything, and now he’s not even looking at Dean, expression fixed on the floor somewhere a little to the left. And then he sighs, squares his shoulders and stands up straight – like he’s fucking mentally preparing himself for something and what the hell, man? He doesn’t look upset anymore, hiding it behind that old implacable mask. Which yeah, Dean doesn’t know what’s worse. It’s been a long time since Cas looked at him like that. Angelically detached. Aloof.

“I understand if I still haven’t earned back your trust—”

“Hey, what?” Dean interrupts. “Of course I trust you, man. What’s going on?”

Cas sighs, looks at Dean with a little bit of something else – close to anger now.

“You don’t have to lie to me, Dean. If you think someone let Lucifer out of the cage, well, there were only three people in there. You, me, and Sam. You’d never do it, I know that, and you’ve just told me you don’t think Sam did, so that only leaves one person.”

Understanding hits Dean like a sledgehammer to the face. Does about as much damage, too. That Cas thinks Dean has that low an opinion of him. It hadn’t even crossed his mind to be suspicious of Cas. He never fucking would, never.

Dean must take too long to articulate, because Cas sighs again

“Not that it’ll make any difference to you, but I didn’t let Lucifer out, I can’t. Two angels in one vessel. It’s impossible.”

“Cas, man.”

Cas doesn’t let him talk, though, ploughs on.

“It’s okay. You don’t have to make excuses. I understand. And I’ll keep my distance, hunt for Amara, not bother you until I can be of use. Until I can prove I’m worthy of your trust.”

And then the fucker turns, like he’s about to leave. Dean lunges forwards grabs his arm and swings him around. A flash of something crosses Cas’s face there – almost rage. Dean chalks it up to anger at having his grand exit interrupted, and yeah. Seems about right. He’d rather Cas was pissed off at him than upset anyway. Anger he can handle, but that look. Not again.

“I do trust you.”

Cas shrugs off his grip with a disbelieving huff but Dean doesn’t let him go easily, reaching out and grabbing both of Cas’s shoulders. And Cas is still an angel, could still escape him with ease, but he doesn’t. He allows Dean this. He allows Dean too much, and Dean always finds a way to mar it. It’s a little of the reason he’s never even tried to tell Cas how he feels. There’s a nine tenths chance Cas doesn’t return the feeling, but if he does. Hell, that might even be worse. Dean would find a way to break that, like everything else.

The silence is stretching, and Dean realises that this is the second time today he’s let his internal self-pitying monologue get in the way of what Cas needs, which is really just proving the fucking point. He can’t even do what’s best for Cas as a friend.

“Cas, man, you gotta believe me. I know you didn’t let Lucifer out – it hadn’t even occurred to me.”

Cas looks at Dean, really hard – that soul deep stare that usually makes Dean so fucking uncomfortable. Not a reflection on Cas, so much as a reflection on Dean. ‘Cause Cas only really breaks out that look when he thinks Dean’s lying to him and, usually, Dean fucking is. This time though, this time Dean’s happy to stand there and be analysed, because there’s no bullshit. He needs Cas to get this, that it’s okay. That Dean doesn’t think he’s at fault for anything.

Dean trusts Cas, far more than he trusts himself.

“You don’t think I did it?”

“Of course not, buddy.” Dean’s voice almost cracks with relief and he tries to cover it. “You’d never– you’re the last person I think would betray us like that.”

And if Sam was here he’d give Dean this little sideways look, a warning. Because Cas has betrayed them in the past, exactly like this. And Dean knows that, but he also knows that Cas has learned his lesson – that the song about the old lady and the fly and the spider and the bird and all the other fucking animals Dean can’t even remember isn’t just a cute little song, but a fucking cautionary tale too. You don’t destroy something bad, by swallowing down something worse.

Dean trusts Cas. He can’t help it. It’s written into him now, into the fucking fabric of him. Cas is family, and even when Cas screws up, that’s fine, he’ll always be welcomed back into the fold. There’s almost nothing too big for Dean to hold it against him.

And Dean tries to express all that with a look, because he can’t put it into words. That’s just not who he is. He thinks Cas gets it though, mostly, ‘cause he smiles at Dean, all that hurt and anger gone in an instant.

“It’s good to hear you say that.”

Dean fights down the acid, rising in his stomach.

“I’m sorry for not saying it enough, if you’d ever think…” He trails off, not sure if he can get the rest of the sentence out and not willing to try.

Cas just nods, but then the serious expression is back.

“But trust aside, Dean. Someone has to have released Lucifer.”

“If they even did.” Dean responds quickly, because yeah, this is the bit he’s been trying really hard not to think about.

And Cas doesn’t let him get away with that, shakes his head.

“No. If you weren’t suspicious of someone you’d just have dismissed it out of hand. I believe you when you say you aren’t suspicious of me, which leaves—”

“Which leaves Sam.” Dean says, gruffly.

Cas nods, and Dean looks back at him with a slightly wild expression, and then fixes on the ground, like this is something he can’t say while making direct eye contact.

“Tell me this is just coincidence, that I’m worried about nothing.”

“You know I can’t do that.” Cas says, softly. He lifts a hand to Dean’s chin, tips it up so that Dean is forced to look at him. “You know Sam, better than anyone. You’d know if he was acting off, or doing something suspicious.”

“He’s being a little weird, maybe, but—”

“But that doesn’t mean he’s housing Lucifer.”

“Yeah. I know, but…” He tries to sort his thoughts into something coherent, an explanation of why he’s suspicious, but he can’t. Instead he asks a question that he’s fucking dreading the answer to. “Would Lucifer still have his wings?”

Cas nods. “He would have been insulated from the effects of Metatron’s spell by the cage.”

“So the fact that Sam has started going on really long runs, and I can almost never find him when he’s on one…”

“Doesn’t mean anything, necessarily. Sam runs anyway, it’s possible that he’s running more now as a response to trauma. Sam was in the cage with Lucifer for longer than we were, maybe Lucifer did something, something that brought out old memories, is making Sam want to forget.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

“You don’t sound convinced.” Cas points out.

“It’s, it’s too much. I can’t fucking think right now, Cas.”

Cas surprises Dean, pulls him into a hug. And Dean wants to fucking cry with relief because he’s so fucking pathetic.

“It’s probably nothing.” Cas whispers into his ear, still holding him tight. “But just in case it isn’t keep an eye on him. Anything suspicious, long periods of time where he’s out of your sight. Let me know.”

Cas releases Dean, and he has to stop himself from begging him not to, to just hold on for a moment longer.

“Come back with me.” Dean says, a little desperately. “You’ll be able to see if Lucifer is in Sam, put my mind at rest.”

But Cas shakes his head, and Dean’s heart fucking clenches.

“Not if he doesn’t want me to, I won’t. Lucifer is far more powerful than me.”

“Come back anyway, you can help me keep an eye.”

“I can’t, Dean.”

“Why not?”

“Because I promised I wouldn’t rest until Amara and her hold on you were destroyed. I won’t break that promise.”

Dean wilts, but he’s Dean Winchester. He understands that duty comes before pleasure. He’s spent his entire life sacrificing his own happiness to greater things – his dad, the job, Sam – although Sam he’d give it up for willingly. Doesn’t mean he has to like it.

“Amara comes first.” He agrees.

“No.” Cas says, smiling fondly, “ _you_ come first.”

He claps Dean on the shoulder and walks away again, and this time, Dean lets him.


	5. Chapter 5

_You can’t do this._

_Watch me._

_He won’t side with me against Sam. You’ll just make him suspicious._

_Oh, honey, wearing your face, I think I can make Dean Winchester do just about anything I want._

_Stop this._

Dean sputters, forces out something that isn’t a sentence by any stretch of the imagination. Lucifer understands what he’s trying to get across, but just barely. He better not be like this for the entire conversation. It’s tiring enough talking to Dean when he’s capable of using words, this inarticulate half babble is going to _really_ test Lucifer’s patience.

Still, the reward at the end will be so worth it.

_What reward?_

_Didn’t your mother ever teach you it’s rude to eavesdrop on someone’s private thoughts?_ Lucifer snaps, sending a painful jolt directly into Cas’s grace to reinforce just how pissed off he is at the dirty little snooper. Wouldn’t do for Cas to learn of the plan, it wouldn’t do at all. He might pull some bullshit _power of true love_ superstrength out of his ass and take back control.

He won’t though. Lucifer learned his lesson from Sam Winchester. There are safeguards this time. Safeguards that mean the only way Cas will regain control, is if Lucifer relinquishes it willingly.

Un-fucking-likely.

Lucifer decodes Dean’s babble, discerns that he doesn’t think Sam said yes. Disappointing, but anticipated. Lucifer is prepared.

He claws through Cas’s memories, a little rougher than necessary, until he finds the one he wants. And then he lets himself sink down into it, bask in the misery and betrayal and blah blah blah, making sure that every little twitch of hurt is playing on his face in glorious full colour. And maybe he adds a little extra flavour, makes it a little worse than the memory suggests, because Cas is a stoic bastard and Lucifer is trying to go for the big technicolour you’ve just broken my heart look, as opposed to the dignified I will suffer in such silence you don’t even realise I’m suffering look.

Dean’s face falls, and Lucifer can imagine him mentally kicking himself, trying to work out what the fuck he said. Good, leave him to stew for a few more moments.

_What are you doing?_ Cas asks, and he’s genuinely miserable, because the memory Lucifer is forcing him to relive is not a pleasant one.

_You’re so impatient._

“I understand.” Lucifer says, knowing the ambiguity will be driving Dean mad.

And yeah, Dean’s reply is short, but it’s got a bit of a desperate air to it, just the right side of panic for Lucifer to work with.

He pretends to draw himself up, puts back on the blank, implacable angelic mask that he knows will throw Dean into a tizzy.

“I understand if I haven’t earned back your trust—”

_Stop this._

Dean interrupts, all indignant confusion and hurt. Lucifer can practically smell the self-loathing coming off him in waves. He doesn’t even know what’s going on, but he does know that somehow it’s his fault. Everything is always his fault. Tedious.

_So self-centred that boy. Thinks the universe revolves around him – every little thing wrong is somehow his fault. At least Sam ‘God is talking to me’ Winchester has delusions of grandeur, this one just has the opposite._ Lucifer sniggers. _Hey, hey, Castiel. What’s the opposite of a messiah complex?_

_I don’t know._

_Yeah ya do. Come on!_

_I don’t._

_It’s a Lucifer complex, dipshit. Which is ironic, considering he’s the only one of your little found family who hasn’t had me riding shotgun._

_Dean’s a good man, he doesn’t deserve to be mocked by you._ Cas snaps.

_Dean hasn’t even noticed he’s talking to the devil instead of the love of his life—_

_I’m not—_

_You can keep denying it, and I will keep reminding you it’s true. You know I don’t lie._

_No, you just use the truth like a hatchet. Whatever version of things is more useful to you, even if it’s not the right one._

_How very poetic._

_Fuck off, Lucifer._

_You should get that on a t-shirt. Oh, wait, silly me, you’re never going to be capable of actions independent from my will ever again. Oops._

As fun as baiting Cas is, though, Lucifer should really get back to the task at hand. Luring Dean into his carefully laid trap.

He summons up just the right amount of bitterness, lays out the big reveal – if Sam isn’t Lucifer then you must think I am. He can tell the moment Dean realises what he’s implying. The puzzled look is replaced by one of outright horror and disbelief, and wow, interesting. He thought he might have to do some convincing, hop in and out of a devil’s trap or something. He can tell by Dean’s expression that this isn’t going to be necessary.

What can he say, he’s a very good actor.

Lucifer gives Dean a few seconds to be dumbstruck, wonders idly if he’s broken the man entirely. When there’s still no response he ploughs on, tells a tiny little white lie, that it’s impossible to house two angels in one body. It’s not even really a lie, though, because Castiel is no angel. He’s a mongrel, half of this and less of that.

Dean finally regains the power of speech, tries to interrupt, but Lucifer has a flow going now. He carries on relentlessly, every word carefully calculated as a blow to Dean, to upset him – and therefore Cas – as much as possible.

“It’s okay. You don’t have to make excuses. I understand. And I’ll keep my distance, hunt for Amara, not bother you until I can be of use. Until I can prove I’m worthy of your trust.”

He turns as if to leave, confident that Dean will call out, try and stop him. He doesn’t, he grabs Lucifer by the arm, and Lucifer can’t help the flash of rage slipping out from his implacable Cas mask. How dare this unclean, filthy abomination touch him? He gets himself back under control quickly, though. Hopes that Dean doesn’t see the anger, or if he does, doesn’t realise the real cause for it.

Dean doesn’t say anything for a moment, and Lucifer feels a little trembling bit of apprehension, wonders if he’s blown it. It won’t be the end of the world, of course, but it will be the end of his inspired plan. For this to work he needs Dean’s trust, totally and utterly. It’s what he’s testing here. Seeing how far he can push. Because by the end, for this to work, he’s going to have to push Dean right to the edge.

He’s going to need Dean to trust him more than he trusts Sam.

And that might sound like a tall order, but it isn’t as difficult as you might think. Because Dean loves Sam unconditionally, but he doesn’t trust him that way. There’s too much bad blood between them, too many betrayals little and large. And they might say it’s all water under the bridge, but, well, that water looks a pretty ominous shade of red.

“I do trust you.” Dean says, and Lucifer pretends that isn’t enough, tries to shrug away again.

_He trusts you, Cas._

_So you’ve told me._

_Gosh, you two are adorable._

“Cas, man, you gotta believe me. I know you didn’t let Lucifer out – it hadn’t even occurred to me.”

_If only he knew, hey Cas?_

“You don’t think I did it?”

“Of course not, buddy.” Dean’s voice almost cracks with relief and he tries to cover it. “You’d never– you’re the last person I think would betray us like that.”

Oh, this is too fucking good.

_How does that feel, Cas? Knowing that Dean trusts you not to betray him. Knowing that you went right ahead and did it anyway?_

_Is this necessary?_

_Yes._

_Lucifer, please._

_It’s gonna break his little heart when he finds out the truth. He trusted you, and you betrayed him by making another deal with another devil._

_I’m not betraying him. I did this for the greater good, for him. To save him from Amara._

_Ooh, that’s good, I’m gonna use that._

_Please._ Cas begs, because it’s all he can do. He’s trapped in a literal hell of his own making, while the devil baits and taunts him and tries to turn the people he loves against each other. And it’s all his fault. But it’ll be worth it, whatever havoc Lucifer manages to wreak, because Amara must be stopped. It’s going to be worth it.

It has to be.

Lucifer decides to turn the screws on Dean a little bit tighter, a bit more guilt.

“It’s good to hear you say that.”

And Dean’s response is perfect, upset, grovelly. Like he realises he fucked up and is going to do everything within his power to fix it. Like he’s going to wear his love and trust for Cas like a fucking t-shirt.

_Hear that, Cas? He’s sorry you didn’t feel appreciated. He didn’t mean it. He loves you._

Cas decides maybe he should stop replying. Maybe that’ll work.

_Cas? Are you listening? He said—_

_I know what he said!_ Cas snaps.

_Tetchy, tetchy._

Lucifer reluctantly decides it’s time to stop playing. Dean’s sufficiently mouldable, he’ll be able to nurture the little seeds of suspicion well enough now. Don’t wanna overdo it, after all.

He wants to wrap up, but of course it’s not going to be that easy. Dean tries to deflect the conversation, because from what Lucifer can gather, that’s what he does. Some kind of weird doublethink where he decides if he avoids his problems that’ll make them go away. Might work for awkward conversations, not so good for looming apocalypses. Stupid bastard.

“No. If you weren’t suspicious of someone you’d just have dismissed it out of hand. I believe you when you say you aren’t suspicious of me, which leaves—” Lucifer trails off, like this is really difficult for him, like he can barely stomach to say it.

“Tell me this is coincidence, that I’m worried about nothing.” _Oh you’re right to be worried, Dean-o. You’re just fixing on the wrong person._

_Do you have to indulge in sarcastic commentary._

_Yes._

“You know I can’t do that.” Lucifer says, in that soft little voice that Cas is learning to hate so much. It’s a voice he never really dared to use on Dean, or at least saved for edge of death situations, where it could be brushed off easily as relief. Lucifer uses it widely and indiscriminately, and the fucking worst thing is that Dean doesn’t even seem to have noticed.

_Oh, sweetheart, he’s noticed. He can’t believe his luck. I can hear his little heart pounding from here._

_I suppose telling you to ‘shut the fuck up’ won’t do any good._ Cas tries for tired nonchalance, but Lucifer is in his head. He can’t lie to him that easily. Lucifer doesn’t call him out on it, though. He does something worse.

He tilts Dean’s head up, hands cool against the warmth of Dean’s skin – and if Cas had control of his body he’d shudder. He has so few opportunities to indulge in these casual intimacies with Dean, and he’s trying so hard not savour this one, when it’s not really his hand, just borrowed fucking nerves.

An exquisite torture, but that’s Lucifer for you. The marriage of the worst of heaven and hell. As if either on their own wasn’t bad enough.

_You’re overthinking this._

_I don’t have anything else to do in here._

_Am I not entertaining enough for you?_

Cas realises his mistake, but it’s too late to pull back. Besides, what more can Lucifer do to him?

_Don’t make me answer that._ Lucifer says, with a lilt.

_It’s difficult, when you listen whether I want you to or not._

_Hey, you invited me in here. Don’t complain when I kick my feet up on the furniture._

Unfortunately, Dean takes that moment to interrupt and Lucifer has to stop his teasing. It’s a good thing he’s able to multitask, because Cas’s internal monologue is just too much fun to shut out entirely. Still, he should turn his full attention to Dean. This is a delicate line he’s treading.

Dean wavers, asks a question that he already knows the answer to, about wings and the cage. This is good. Lucifer is barely doing any of the work. He’s just nodding along, giving Dean a tiny little nudge when he strays off track.

The key isn’t to convince him. The key is to make him suspicious enough that he convinces himself, and Lucifer reckons he’s just about there. Time for the big finale.

He can see Dean quavering, see him fighting the urge to reach out and touch. So Lucifer gives him what Cas would never think to – the tactile comfort he craves.

He pulls Dean into a hug, revelling in the miserable joy Cas feels at his action, the minute shudders wracking Dean’s frame, the relief that yeah, okay, everything else is threatening to crumble and fall around him, but he has Cas. A grounding presence. An anchor.

_I hate you._

_I’m just giving him what he needs._

_No, you’re not._

_No, but he seems to be enjoying it. Maybe I should—_

_Don’t._

_You keep saying that, like you think it’ll make a difference._

But no, now is not the time to push things. Now is the time to leave Dean, alone and unbalanced, confused and suspicious.

Lucifer turns down Dean’s offer of shelter, revels in the little disappointed frown that gets covered up so quickly. But that’s not enough, he has to follow it up with a gut punch, turning the decision around on Dean, so he at once thinks Cas’s departure is his fault, but also doesn’t consider it an abandonment.

“No.” Lucifer says, forcing a fond smile onto his face, doing his best not to gag at the mawkish affection “ _you_ come first.”

Mic drop, exit Lucifer.


	6. Chapter 6

Dean doesn’t drive straight back to the bunker. There’s too much crap knocking around his head right now, he needs a bit of distance, a bit of time in his own mind to sort out his own thoughts.

He ends up, predictably as ever, in a bar. He orders a beer, sits by himself at a table and thinks. He runs through every little word and action in the run up to Sam’s visit to the cage – every one afterwards too. There’s nothing conclusive. Yeah, Sam went by himself when he promised not to. Yeah he’s been acting weird, yeah this yeah that. There’s nothing that says in big shiny lights, I AM LUCIFER.

And he can’t fucking confront Sam on the basis of nagging fear and a terrified hunch. If it is just Sam, well, there’s gonna be fights, blame, recrimination. All that. And if it’s not Sam, well, then he’s let Lucifer know he’s onto him and what then? The only slight advantage Dean has is fucking kaput.

God this is a fucking mess. What happened to the good old days, when the most complicated questions he had to ask were: _is my family safe_ and _how do we kill this monster?_

Although in fairness, the questions are still pretty much the same, it’s just the answers that are more complicated. _Is Sam safe?_ Dunno, depends on whether he’s got Lucifer wearing him like a glove. _Is Cas safe?_ Seems like it at the moment, but he’s on the trail of something big and huge and terrible. _How do we kill the monster?_ Well, fuck, good question, how do you kill the actual sister of god?

Because yeah, it’s not like possible-Lucifer is even their only problem.

Cas is working on Amara though. And if anyone can come through for them, it’s Cas. He’s got Dean’s back, through all of this. And it’s a relief to know that there’s someone there who he can trust unconditionally to do that.

And if Dean didn’t have bigger things to worry about, to chew over and gnaw at until his brain aches, he’d be thinking about the last thing Cas said to him. The little fucking stomach flip that came with the knowledge that Cas isn’t just doing this because Amara needs to be stopped. He’s doing it because he cares about Dean, and because he’s worried for him. Not worried _about_ him, thinking he’s going to flip off and let them down. Worried for him, and determined to fix it.

And the difference between for and about is small in technical terms, but the gap between the two for Dean is astronomical, and to know that Cas doesn’t seem him as a problem but a friend in need of help is a relief.

 _Shame it’s just as a friend._ A snide little voice pops up, but he’s long acquainted with the voice, and he’s getting very good at just punching the fucker back down where it belongs.

Repression might not be healthy, but it sure is fucking helpful.

Dean finishes his beer, looks ruefully at the bar. He wants another, but he needs to leave. He can only put off all this bullshit for so long before he has to go back, confront or not confront Sam, start hoarding fucking evidence like Sherlock Holmes but with more guns and his Doctor Watson equivalent who knows how far away doing who knows what.

Maybe he’s drunker than he thought.  Definitely time to go back.

He checks his phone, doesn’t see any messages from Sam. Huh. He’s been gone for hours, Sam should have found the note by now.

Unless.

 

*

 

Dean lets himself in, half expecting – mostly hoping – that he’s going to be pounced on by a furious Sam, with demands to explain himself, where he was and what he was doing.

Instead he’s met with silence. He potters around, deliberately loud, opens cupboards and chucks around pots and pans as he rustles up ingredients for dinner.

Still no sign of Sam.

He doesn’t actually cook, just lays everything out on the counter – plausible deniability – and then he goes hunting through the bunker.

He tries everywhere. The library, the gym, the showers, the garage. Finally, he comes to Sam’s room. He knocks, several times, doesn’t get a reply. He hovers for a moment, deciding whether he’s going to breach his brother’s privacy and bust on through.

Who’s he kidding? He opens the door, winces at the loud click and looks inside.

Sam isn’t here. The bed is made, looks undisturbed. Probably nothing, probably just means Sam changed the sheets earlier, hasn’t sat down on it since. Not that he hasn’t slept in it for days.

“Dean?”

Dean whips around, fights down the rising flush in his cheeks at being caught. Sam is standing behind him, dressed in normal clothes instead of his running crap.

“Hey, where were you? I looked everywhere.” Dean steps aside to let Sam into his own room, hopes it wasn’t too obvious that he was here to snoop.

“I just got back, I was out buying groceries.”

“Oh, cool.”

“Saw the stuff you left out on the counter, we having spaghetti?”

“Yeah, I was just coming to ask if that was okay.”

Sam gives him a weird look, deservedly. Dean never asks what Sam wants, he just makes dinner and like it or lump it.

“Um, yeah. Fine.”

“Good. Did you, uh, get my note this morning?”

“About Cas? Yeah. I texted you, but you didn’t reply so I figured you were busy.”

Okay, alarm bells are definitely ringing now. First, there was no fucking text, so why is he lying? Second, if Sam knew he was out on a hunt with Cas, why wasn’t he worried when things went radio silence.

“Dean?” Sam prompts, and Dean realises he must have been asked a question.

“Sorry, what?”

“I asked, what happened, what did Cas want?”

Maybe it’s just Dean, but he feels like he can detect some kind of undercurrent to Sam’s tone. Some little suspicion, hint of another question.

“Uh, just, y’know, stuff. Nothing important.” Dean blusters, changes the conversation. “I’m gonna go make a start on dinner.”

Sam just looks at him, all brows furrowed and suspicious, and it makes Dean’s palms sweat.

 

*

 

Sam pulls out his phone, sends a text to Claire.

—I think you were right  
  
—About Dean and Cas?  
  
—Yeah, Dean’s only just back, and he smells like beer  
  
—Interesting  
  
—And he’s being weird and cagey, won’t tell me what happened  
  
—They so went on a date  
  
—Y’think?  
  
—Ask him again, see what he says

 

*

 

Dean drinks all the way through dinner preparations. It’s not healthy, but he needs something, some kind of crutch. The way Sam is looking at him is making his skin crawl. He’d followed Dean to the kitchen and set up with a book, ostensibly to do research or something, but Dean can’t shake the feeling that he’s having an eye kept on him. He keeps looking up with this expression, and Dean can’t really pin it, but if he had to he’d call it suspicious. Like Sam thinks he’s hiding something.

Or like Lucifer thinks Dean is on to him, and is keeping an eye out.

By the time he serves up, Dean is tipsy, but acting drunk. He accidentally on purpose slops some sauce on Sam’s book, waits to see if there’s any Lucifer-esque flash of rage.

“What the fuck, Dean?” Sam asks, grabbing a fistful of paper towels. Okay, he’s annoyed, but he’s not furious. Dean grabs his hand, stops him.

“Hey, I’ll clean it up.”

Sam’s skin feels cool to Dean’s touch, but not much colder than it should be. Any anyway, Dean’s just been cooking, of course he’s gonna be warmer. It doesn’t mean anything. None of this does.

Sam watches, unimpressed, as Dean flails around. Wonders what happened with him and Cas that made him drink so much this evening. He’d wager it wasn’t anything good, decides to pry a little. It’s his brother and his best friend, he wants to know they’re both okay – that they haven’t fucked each other up some more.

He waits until Dean has sat down, started to eat before he brings it up, though. Dean’s always more pliable when he’s eating.

“How’s Cas?”

“Fine.” Dean says around a mouthful of pasta. Clearly dismissing the topic.

Sam nearly rolls his eyes, restrains himself.

“What did you guys get up to this morning?”

It’s the question Dean’s been dreading. ‘Cause it means Sam, or Lucifer, is suspicious about what happened, that his earlier, evasive answer wasn’t enough. Maybe they didn’t kill all the demons, maybe there was another one. Maybe he found out about the massacre. Shit.

“Nothing. Like I already told you.” Dean snaps.

“I just wanna know what happened.” Sam presses.

“Nothing!” Dean sets the pepper down with such force that the table creaks.

Sam knows he should let it go, but he can’t help himself. He’s gotta know, for reasons both callous and supportive. He wants to be there for them both, if something is going on, but he also needs to make sure it isn’t distracting them. It’s the literal fucking apocalypse. Again, but probably worse. They can’t afford to be getting derailed or fighting amongst themselves.

“Doesn’t seem like nothing. You’ve been acting weird all evening.”

“I’ve been acting weird?” Dean spits, incredulous. He needs to deflect, make this about Sam, but not in a way that’ll make him suspicious. “You’re the one who’s barely been here. Have you got a girl stashed away somewhere – someone you’d rather be hanging out with than doing research on how to stop goddamn Amara?”

The look Dean gets at that is confusion, followed by a spark of understanding and frustration. That’s good, if it is Lucifer and he’s noticed that Dean is suspicious of him, deflecting it like this should work, hopefully. It’s an excuse, anyway.

Dean hammers the point.

“Come on Sam, who is she? This girl who’s more important to you than the goddamn apocalypse?”

“You are impossible, you know that?” Sam snorts, not even annoyed. This is classic Dean, deflecting and trying to pin his own problems on someone else. It’s all the confirmation Sam needs, and he knows he won’t get anything else if he pushes – will just drive Dean further into his fucking shell. He picks up his plate with a put-upon sigh. “I’m gonna eat this in my room.”

Dean doesn’t relax until Sam is out of the room.


	7. Chapter 7

“That was a lot of fun.” Lucifer says, once they’re out of earshot. He’s opting to walk as opposed to just popping off, just in case beady eyed Winchester senior is looking longingly out of the window as they go, or something.

_For you, maybe._

“Not appreciating my little bonding sessions with your boyfriend, are we?”

_He’s not—_

“I’m sorry, with the oh so very requited love of your life.” Lucifer rolls his eyes, slips into an abandoned side alley and teleports.

Cas is momentarily thrown by the chance of location, the sensation of being flung across the planet on someone else’s wings – he understands now, why Dean didn’t like it. It’s nauseating, and Lucifer knows this. He likes to use it to unbalance Cas – will take even the smallest of excuses to stretch his scorched wings and fly.

Cas can smell the sulphur on them, every time he does. Lucifer doesn’t consider himself much changed by hell, but he’s wrong. You can’t see the true form of his wings without flinching at the taint, the shredded, rotting horror of them.

“Careful, Castiel. I might get offended.”

_So what? You know it’s true._

“What I know is that if you keep this up the Yellowstone Caldera is going to become a lot less dormant.”

Cas grits his teeth, says nothing.

“Better.”

_Where are we?_ It’s hot, sandy, and isolated. No people as far as the eye can see. Cas has no idea why Lucifer would come here.

“The Bahamas. I think we’re both in need of a well-deserved break.”

_But what about—_

“Amara, Amara, Amara. Anyone would think you’re obsessed. Is that it, got a crush on god’s sister? Or maybe you’re jealous, because she’s got a ‘bond’ with Dean. The kind of thing that you’ll never get to experience now, what with having donated your body to evil.”

_This might be a joke to you, but she’s devouring souls, getting stronger._

“Amara- schamara. I have this covered.”

_Do you?_ Cas snaps, momentarily forgetting who he’s talking to, what’s at stake. _Because I’m in your head and all I’ve seen you do so far is torture me and kill angels._

Lucifer doesn’t say a word, just smiles that smug little grin of his, takes his index finger and starts to apply pressure, bending it back further and further until it snaps. He’s been making a few sneaky modifications to this body, while Castiel has been distracted. Turns out you can do a lot of interesting things when there are two angels sharing a vessel. Things like temporarily stripping away the divine resilience of the weaker angel, making him feel every little niggle and wound and papercut.

Cas screams out in agony, made worse somehow because he doesn’t have a mouth to voice it, just echoing inside his head.

Lucifer doesn’t leave him in pain for long, heals the finger and relaxes his stifling hold on Cas’s grace.

“Next time, it’ll be something much more painful, and permanent. Your intestines, maybe. Understand?”

_Yes._

“Good.”

 

*

 

Lucifer walks the rest of the way, whistling tunelessly and attracting strange looks from passers-by once they reach a semblance of civilisation – it’s a blistering hot day, even for early spring, and he’s wearing a suit and trench coat and not even sweating slightly.

He walks inconsiderately, ploughing through the oncoming crowd and barging people out of the way, sneering when they quail.

One woman takes umbrage, shoves him back. Cas knows what’s going to happen even before it does, but he doesn’t say anything. He’s learned that his intervention tends to make no difference at best, make things far, far worse otherwise.

Not that him holding his tongue matters. Lucifer is in his flesh and bone, twined around his neurons and knitted into his grace. He can skim every little thought and regret and desire off Cas’s surface, or he could shove his fist into Cas’s guts and pull out his entrails, examine them cell by cell – and   there’s nothing Cas could possibly do to stop him.

It’s delicious, the sheer fucking potential of it.

Lucifer clasps the woman’s hand, shakes it and apologises profusely. She seems startled, puffed up and ready for a fight and not getting one, and it deflates her. She accepts in a fluster, moves on.

Lucifer walks a handful of paces, turns back and watches with arms folded.

 “Three.” He whispers.

Cas fights very hard to resist the urge to struggle, chide or beg or plead or even fucking react. If he thought he had the faintest hope of taking back control, maybe he would have tried – saved one innocent life. Not much in the scheme of things, but somehow that doesn’t make it any easier to just sit there and watch.

“Two.” Lucifer wants to get a rise out of him, he knows, so he resists.

“One.” He won’t react, he won’t.

“Pop” Lucifer exaggerates the word into a bilabial click, cartoonish and mocking.

The violence that follows is cartoonish too. Over the top and ridiculous, even if it doesn’t quite start that way.

The woman comes to an abrupt halt, turns around slowly. She peers in Lucifer’s direction, confused, like she’s just recognised the context she knows him from and cannot fathom why he’s turned up here.

She reaches up to wipe her eye – it’s watering, some little irritant stuck in there that she can’t seem to blink away. She looks at her finger to see if she got it, the eyelash or the speck of dust, does a double take when all she sees is red. She starts to scramble around in her bag, looking for a phone screen or a mirror to examine herself in.

_What have you done?_ Cas asks in spite of himself. He expected sudden violence, angelic style retribution. He doesn’t know what he’s about to witness anymore.

_Something fun._ Lucifer echoes his earlier assertion, grinning as the woman finally sees her reflection, starts to panic.

The people around her are starting to take notice – some backing away, some pulling out phones to call the emergency services. Others are more bold, move forwards to reassure and comfort her in a mix of softly spoken Bahamian Creole and English.

Their compassion is their undoing, as Lucifer lets out a long, high pitched whistle. One of the woman’s eyes explodes out of its socket with a bloody squelch, but the other carries on swivelling, fixes on the closest person.

The object of her attention clocks the sudden and malevolent focus, reacts as though he’s trying to soothe a wounded animal, cornered and preparing to defend itself. Slow movements, soothing noises. Effective, no doubt, on an animal, not so much on one of Lucifer’s playthings.

She lunges forwards, buries her teeth in the flesh of his cheek and rips, spits the bloody mess on the ground and giggles. She pushes her victim aside, bounds forwards as if to take another while everyone scatters in different directions.

Lucifer whistles again, and she bellows, a furious howl, before collapsing, writhing to the ground. Lucifer makes his way over to her, examines her for a moment, and then brings his foot down on her ribcage. There’s the sound of bone splintering, mixed in chorus with her cries of pain and the panicked screams of those still escaping.

He doesn’t kill her, but neither does he leave her. Instead he makes himself invisible, retreats a little way, to a street side cafe, where he sits.

He can feel Castiel’s horror – and his familiarity, nearly laughs.

“Oh, don’t wet yourself. It’s not croatoan. That ship has sailed.”

He doesn’t elaborate, it’s more fun to leave Cas wondering if it’s because he can’t, or because he doesn’t want to.

Or whether he’s lying entirely.


	8. Chapter 8

Sam gets up early the next morning, ass crack of dawn early. But that’s fine, because so does Dean. He sets an alarm for Sam’s usual hour, but he also takes precautions – hides a baby monitor in Sam’s room while he’s otherwise occupied. Which yeah, risky move depending on what Sam has planned for that night, but Dean is lucky, doesn’t hear a squeak out of it until 3am.

He wakes up with a startled huff as Sam’s alarm briefly goes off, takes a second to orientate himself. That’s not good, that’s sloppy. He’s getting too comfortable here, which okay, shouldn’t really be a problem. It’s the safest goddamn place they know. Usually, unless. Yeah.

Dean scrubs his hand over his face, pops a couple of Vivarin – because Sam’s gonna notice if he starts making coffee, and energy drinks taste like ass. Except that’s grossly unfair to ass.

Unfortunately, Sam is ready and heading off within moments of getting up, while Dean estimates he still needs about 20 minutes before the caffeine kicks in and he becomes a real life human being. Luckily he planned for that and went to bed dressed in all but his boots and his oh so subtle baseball cap of facial concealment. Unluckily, he is not yet possessed of the manual dexterity to deal with things like laces.

He fumbles something close enough to a knot to keep the shoes on his feet, and then he waits until hears the bunker’s front door click gently shut, counts out another 60 seconds before he moves. Times like this he could really do with having Cas around. Even discounting the invisibility, dude is like a ninja. He could have done all this difficult, early morning legwork without breaking a sweat.

But yeah, let’s be honest, his usefulness is just one inconsequential footnote in the clusterfuck of reasons Dean wants Cas here right now. That’s tough shit for Dean though, dude has more important, dangerous, world saving shit to do.

Fuck, but Dean misses him.

No time for dwelling on that now, though. Dean can mope to his heart’s goddamn content later. For now he slips out of the bunker through the garage, giving the Impala a fond pat as he goes. Not today, unfortunately. Baby is many and glorious things, but she ain’t subtle.

 

*

 

Sam is only a little way up the road when Dean spots him. He’s walking slow, unhurried and casual, like he doesn’t have a care in the world. Doesn’t even check behind him – and while Dean’s grateful because it makes him easier to follow, he’s also fucking pissed off. He taught Sam better than that – it’s like he wants to get himself killed.

Or like he knows he doesn’t need to watch his back, because there’s nothing that has the juice to do the job – that he’s safe regardless.

Stop it. He can’t assume. It’s not like that, it can’t be. It’s just the fucking stress of the whole situation – Lucifer, Amara – making Dean paranoid. He’s got to believe that.

Sam continues his casual walk, taking a meandering route to the main road and fucking whistling as he goes. He seems unusually cheery for this time of the morning. Mind you, to Dean anything that isn’t lying facedown on the floor and groaning is unnaturally cheerful for this time of morning.

The caffeine is taking its sweet, sweet time to kick in and he’s wondering if it’s too early to try taking another few pills. He wants to be alert, but the last thing he needs to do is double dose himself and end up with the caffeine shakes, all jittery and panicky. He’s already worried he’s verging on paranoia, the last thing he needs to add to the mix is chemically manufactured anxiety.

 

*

 

Everything is going fine, until Sam gets to the main road. Dean expects him to keep walking, or fucking teleport or something. But no. The bastard just stands there, waits for a passing car, and then sticks his thumb out.

Fucking hitchhiking.

Firstly, what the fuck, does he want to get murdered? Yeah Sam can handle himself, but still. You never know what kind of nutjobs are driving around – and at this time especially. All it takes is a bottle of water and a drug that Dean already knows Sam wouldn’t fucking recognise the taste of.

If he climbs into a fucking truck, Dean is gonna kill him. Doesn’t matter if he has to blow his cover to do it. Dean’s had experience with the less salubrious kind of truck drivers – years back, not something he likes to dwell on – and the idea of Sam sharing a cabin with that type of asswipe puts him on edge.

It almost makes him hope that Sam _is_ hosting the goddamn devil.

Dean hesitates for a moment – he doesn’t want to go and miss Sam getting picked up, but at this time of the fucking night it could take him ages, and there’s no way Dean’s gonna be able to chase a car on foot.

Fuck it, he turns heel, belts his way back to the bunker and throws himself into one of the old classics in the garage, a ’53 Hudson Hornet. She’s quiet as a whisper thanks to a bit of tinkering – Dean loves the Impala, but even he gets that sometimes you need something a bit more subtle – and a dark green colour. Dean knows he can count on her, too. He’s been working his way through all the motors stashed here and fixing them up when he has some downtime, needs a little stress relief. There’s nothing quite like burying your hands in the guts of an old car, it’s like a form of mediation, getting up to your elbows in something old and built with care.

 

*

 

He drives slowly back, relieved to see that Sam is still waiting on the main road. Dean watches as he checks his phone a few times, starts getting antsier and antsier the longer he waits.

So he’s on his way to an appointment of some kind, Dean infers. At ass o’clock in the morning. An appointment he doesn’t want to take one of the bunker’s cars to, even though it’s time sensitive. An appointment he walked to – making it hard for someone to follow him unnoticed in a car, and then hitched to – making it nearly impossible for someone to follow on foot.

If he’s trying to be a sneaky bastard, he’s doing it fucking well.

But if he’s trying to be a sneaky bastard because he’s Lucifer, well. Why would he bother with all this, why wouldn’t he just get out of sight and fly?

Unless it’s a bluff? Unless he knows that Dean is following him and he’s trying to catch him off guard?

Unless, unless, unless.

Dean needs the smoking gun, something definite. Which is fine, if there is a gun to find. But what if there’s not? How long can he justify this sneaking around, stalking Sam.

How long before he gets desperate enough to go back to the cage.


	9. Chapter 9

Eventually Sam gets picked up – by a newish looking station wagon to Dean’s huge relief – sails off in the direction of Lebanon. Dean follows at a distance, unconsciously grinding his teeth. He tails them all the way into the town centre, where Sam barrels out of his vehicle and waves a hasty goodbye to the driver.

Sam checks his watch, swears and starts running. Dean parks the car up and follows on foot– he draws a little closer than he might on a usual hunt, confident that Sam is too distracted to notice him, and he’s right.

Sam charges into an all-night diner, and Dean pulls his baseball cap down lower, slinks in behind. The place is freakishly busy for the early hour, which is a goddamn relief because it means he’ll stick out less. It also means the only space is a table opposite the booth that Sam throws himself into, hastily mumbling apologies for being late. The woman he came here to meet – dark colouring, pretty enough from the quick glance Dean gets of her – defers his apology in a tone too quiet for Dean to make out the actual words.

Dean sits down with his back to the pair, tries to arrange the absurdly large stainless steel menu holder so that he can see their reflection.

Okay, it’s not fucking great, just vague shapes, but it’s probably better than nothing.

He doesn’t hear much of their conversation, just the odd word here and there. They’re talking quietly, almost suspiciously so. Dean needs to work out a way to get nearer, or a way to make every other goddamn person in the place shut their cakeholes.

Eventually he gets up to go to the toilet – partly planning to brush past Sam’s table and see if he overhears anything incriminating, but mostly because nature calls – when a waitress appears with their cheque. Dean groans under his breath. Whatever hush-hush conversation they were having is guaranteed over now, but he’s already standing and it’ll look suspicious if he just sits down.

He hurries to the toilet, takes care of business as quickly as possible – not that he expects anything much to happen while he’s gone, but it’d be just his luck if the pair fucking split while he was hitting the head.

He needn’t have worried, they’re all still there when he comes out of the bathroom. As he makes his way back to his table he causally watches out the corner of his eye. Doesn’t seem like anything too exciting is happening, just the waitress setting something down on the table, knocking over a salt cellar in the process.

The head comes off and salt sprays towards Sam’s mysterious friend. She flinches violently out of the way, yells as if she’s been burned.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?!” She snaps at the waitress.

The bottom drops out of Dean’s stomach at the overreaction. Yeah, okay, there are a number of explanations for why someone would react like that to an accident, a tiny bit of salt. There’s also a theory he read about once – he can’t quite remember the name, something to do with a razor.

Anyway, the name isn’t important, what is important is the vague thrust of it, that when you’ve got a lot of different theories, look at the simplest one first.

Simplest one being, flinching at salt like that wouldn’t be an overreaction if you were a demon.

And why would Sam be meeting with a demon at coming up to 5am? Why would he sneak out of the bunker to do it, make sure Dean didn’t follow him?

The last time he did something like this, it was for Ruby’s blood – demon blood. And the last time Sam drank demon blood was just before he said yes to Lucifer – had to down whole pints of it, to make himself hospitable to the devil.

Dean forces himself to keep walking, drops a crumpled note on his table to cover his coffee and makes for the exit. He goes slow, trying not to catch anyone’s attention – easy what with everyone more focussed on the fuss being made at Sam’s table.

He makes it out the door unnoticed and his nerve holds for a handful of paces before he starts to run. He throws himself into the nearest dark alley and collapses against the wall.

He can’t breathe, he can’t fucking breathe.

 

*

 

Maria realises what she’s doing, stops almost immediately and apologises to the waitress.

“I am so sorry, I didn’t mean to snap. I’ve had a long week, and I wasn’t thinking, I’m so sorry.”

The woman waves her apology away with a tired, not quite sincere smile. She’s working the dog shift, she gets this shit all the time and she doesn’t have the energy to care.

Sam raises an eyebrow at Maria once the waitress is gone. She folds her arms on the table and drops her head, mumbles into the crook of her elbow.

“Don’t give me that look.”

“What look?” He asks, laughing.

She adjusts her angle so that just one eye is looking back out at him.

“The wry one that says, wow, for someone who works in customer service and knows what it’s like, you sure were a bitch to that poor innocent woman.”

“I wasn’t gonna say anything.”

She sits back up, sighs.

“I have to be at the bakery in like, 10 minutes.”

“You should get going.”

“Yeah.” She sighs again, drags herself to her feet and waits for Sam to follow. “I can’t believe you hauled your ass all the way here just for breakfast with me.”

He shrugs. “I wanted to see you.”

“You could come after my shift.” She suggests as they step out into the street.

Sam follows her with a grimace. “You know I can’t.”

“Yeah, yeah, can’t let your brother know about your secret girlfriend.”

“I would, if I could—”

“Yeah, yeah. I know.” She silences him with a kiss. “Now get back home with you, before he wakes up and finds you gone.”

“I’ll let you know as soon as I can slip away.”

“You better.”

Sam watches her go with a sad, fond look. Dean didn’t know how close he was to the truth when he lashed out, and yeah, he probably shouldn’t be dividing his attention when the apocalypse is knocking at the gates. But hell, what the fuck is the point in saving the world if you don’t take out a few hours a week to fucking appreciate someone who makes it worth it.


	10. Chapter 10

Cas doesn’t say anything else for a while. He’s trying to project an air of horrified silence, as though he’s been struck dumb. And maybe he has been a little, but Lucifer can feel the speed of his thoughts as he runs through measure and countermeasure, weighs the likelihood of what was just said about croatoan being true. He’s a clever little poppet, this Castiel. Emotional though, and prone to act against his own self-interest in defence of others.  Good job, too – or Lucifer would still be kicking back in the cage.

If only, Lucifer muses, he’d noticed Castiel earlier, before the fall. He would have made a good recruit, before all the _humanity_ started to rub off on him – before it ruined him.

Too late for that now. Too many divergent paths between the two fallen angels for anything approaching agreement. Castiel would never ally himself with Lucifer – this doesn’t count, in his head, this isn’t being allied with him, this is just stepping out of his way and letting him blow himself and Amara to dust – and Lucifer has too much hatred for Castiel to ever consider letting him into the fold. Before the fall, maybe. During the apocalypse, definitely. But you don’t stop Armageddon and throw a guy in a cage for – as far as you’re both concerned – all eternity without severely pissing him off.

And forgiveness isn’t exactly in Lucifer’s nature.

 

*

 

_Aren’t you going to ask me why we’re waiting here?_ Lucifer taunts.

_It wouldn’t make a difference. If you want me to know you’ll tell me, if not..._

_You’re taking all the fun out of this._ Lucifer pouts.

_Good._

_Is it really? Because if you stop entertaining me, I’ll have to find my fun elsewhere._

Cas knows a threat when he hears one.

_Why are we here?_

_We’re waiting for a friend._

_I didn’t think you had friends._

Lucifer laughs. _You’re right, maybe a sister would be a better way of describing her._

_Huh._ Cas mimics Sam’s best disinterested sigh. He knows Lucifer is sifting through his emotions, savouring every hint of fear and disgust, but still. Maybe if he just pretends hard enough, uses a bored enough tone, Lucifer will be thrown off, think he’s missed his mark. Stop whatever heinous thing he’s about to do.

Cas might not be able to lie to Lucifer, but he can lie to himself. It’s about the only thing keeping him sane right now.

_Don’t you want to know—_

Cas doesn’t get to find out what Lucifer thinks he ought to know, because the ‘sister’ in question arrives. She walks swiftly, head bowed under a white hood – monastic robes exchanged in the modern day for a hoodie at least three or four sizes too big for her. It swamps her frame, grants her enough anonymity to get by unrecognised.

Unless you can see through the cloth and flesh and bone to the divinity swirling underneath.

Castiel doesn’t remember her name, and neither does Lucifer. Not that it matters – it’s not who she is that has drawn the devil here. It’s what she’s doing.

She kneels down by the side of Lucifer’s victim – still crying out faintly, gurgling blood and viscera – and she smiles, soft and fond.

“It’s okay.” She says, in a patient and kind tone. “I’m here to help.”

Her palms flash blue and the woman’s injuries fade, gradually disappear. Then the angel lays a hand on her forehead. “Time to forget.”

_They call her the angel of Clarence Bay._ Lucifer informs Cas, with a smug little lilt. Cas ignores him, focuses on the name instead of the implication of Lucifer bringing them here, luring out this angel who turns up when there’s carnage and does her best to make things right.

Clarence. Meg used to call him Clarence, and now he knows why, thanks to Metatron. Maybe one day he’ll get to tell her that. He hasn’t seen her for so long – and they were friends, in a curious way.

He wonders, idly, what she’s up to, how she’d react to hearing about his life since they last spoke. She’d probably approve of the whole Lucifer thing, the rest, maybe not so much.  He resolves to look her up, when this is all over, when Amara and the devil are gone.

If there’s anything left of him that’s more substantial than a smoking crater and a bloody smear.

_Should we go say hello, Castiel?_

_If I say no will you leave her alone?_

_Maybe._

_No._

Lucifer grins so wide it makes Cas’s mouth ache.

_You are too cute._

He teleports behind the defenceless, harmless angel, wraps his arms around her in a bear hug, and teleports.

They land in a hotel of some kind, opulent and plush. Because Lucifer despises humanity, but he loves grandeur. He throws the angel to the floor, kneels over her, pinning her down with his weight.

“And what’s your name, little bird?”

“K – Karael” She stutters. “You’re Castiel?” She sounds uncertain, she recognises the vessel, but the angel writhing around underneath it is so bright she can barely look at him, can’t get a fix. It’s like staring at the sun itself, and even when she closes her eyes she can see an imprint.

“Guess again.” Lucifer drawls.

“I – I don’t know.”

“Don’t you recognise me? I’ve been away for a while, but that’s just hurtful.” He pouts.

“I – I can’t, it’s like looking at the sun.”

Lucifer giggles, leans down and whispers in her ear. “Or perhaps a morning star.”

Karael understands immediately, every muscle in her body locking up simultaneously. White light gathers around her face and she streams out of her vessel, determined to get to heaven, to warn them. Lucifer is free, the host must be prepared to stand against him.


	11. Chapter 11

Lucifer sighs, put upon and theatrically so. He plunges his fist into the escaping white stream, yanks it back and stuffs it into her mouth.

“That was just rude.” He tuts, as he sears a binding sigil into the flesh of her chest. “I came a long way to talk with you.”

She blinks, panicked. “What do you want?”

“Nuh, uh. You had your chance to do this the easy way. Now I’m going to make you suffer.”

He holds out a hand, and the expensive ebony table in the centre of the room explodes into pieces. They fly towards him, settle in a pile at his feet. He examines the shards, selects a couple of the longest and thinnest.

“Traditionally this is done with metal spikes. You’ve annoyed me, though, so I’m going to use something a little more, uh, splintery. Less accurate, more fun.”

He pushes the first one into her skull, wiggles it about a bit while she screams. It’s quickly joined by another, and another, until suddenly, she’s silent. Her eyes are glazed and her jaw is slack.

“Well, that’s disappointing.” Lucifer muses out loud. He thought this would take much longer – he should be extremely out of practice. It seems like reprogramming an angel is an art that, once learned, never really goes away. And let’s face it; he’s had a lot of experience. The idiots upstairs might think that turning an angel into a demon is as simple as falling from grace and adding sin, but they’re naive at best, wilfully stupid at worst.

You’ve got to get your hands dirty, get in their heads and cross a few wires.

“Karael?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know the locations of any other angels on earth?”

“Yes.”

“Be a darling and tell me who they are, and where?”

She reels off five names and locations. Mostly local, one a bit more far flung. Excellent. It’s enough to be starting with, and they’ll know others, who’ll know others.

“You hear that, Castiel? I’m just getting started.”

There’s no response, and, now that Lucifer thinks about his reluctant host-mate, there hasn’t been one for a while. No back chat or desperate pleading or anything fun. In fact, he can’t feel anything coming from Castiel at all.

He turns his attention inwards, to Cas, jabs roughly at him and then recoils. There’s terror roiling off the other angel in waves, thick and hot and suffocating and so strong it managed to nudge Lucifer away from his consciousness. Lucifer almost chokes with the force of it, wonders what the fuck is going on.

Only one way to find out. He bludgeons his way back in – just because it could push him out when he wasn’t paying attention doesn’t mean it can keep him out – realises what’s happening and he laughs.

The fucker is having a panic attack. Lucifer pushes further, digs around for what caused it and is treated to a full colour flashback of Naomi and her “training”.

Huh, looks like heaven knows a thing or two after all. Someone’s been leaking trade secrets.

This, this is too good to resist. 

_Don’t worry Castiel._ Lucifer whispers in his best imitation of Naomi. _We’ll soon have you back in working order._

 

*

 

Lucifer lifts up the first spike, and Cas stutters to a halt, all protests and fear momentarily replaced by blank space. If he had the cognitive power to appreciate it, he’d be savouring this moment. This is what he wanted when he said yes to Lucifer. Okay, it was a means to the ultimate end of saving the world, the Winchesters. But silence, that was to be the sweetener, the blessed fucking peace of being turned off. Allowed to stop.

He just wants it

to

stop.

He should be so lucky.

After the pause comes all hell, as if hosting the devil himself wasn’t close enough to that to begin with.

He can feel Naomi’s hands on him, fisted perfunctorily in his hair, titling his head up so that he’s looking her in the eyes. He keeps trying to dart his gaze away, refuse to meet her cold glare, but she won’t let him. Every time his gaze slips she just moves his head, takes away his choice.

She’s always taking away his choice, even in the smallest, most menial of ways.

He can feel blood drying under his fingernails, sticky and warm. Dean’s, it’s Dean’s blood and no matter how much he concentrates he can’t clean it away. He has no control over his body, over himself.

“That wasn’t very clever, was it, Castiel?” Naomi’s voice claws at him, brutal in a way that her touch doesn’t manage. “Trying to tear out your grace and fall – you know we couldn’t allow you to do that.”

He tried to tear out his grace – does that mean the only blood on his hands is his own? He nearly sobs with relief. He can’t hold his grip on time, things are blurring and he doesn’t remember. He doesn’t know how long he’s been here, what he’s doing, what he’s done. All he knows is that Naomi wants him to kill Dean, and he can’t. He needs to resist her.

“I didn’t kill Dean?” He chokes out the question, doesn’t understand why his heart is racing and his chest feels like it’s cracking in two. The only blood on his hands is his own, that should be a relief, but it isn’t, it isn’t.

“Oh, no. You performed perfectly.” Naomi sounds smug now, delighted. “You killed him multiple times, with no mercy or hesitation. We were convinced you were ready, right up until the last one.” Her tone slips to something darker, more impatient. “What stopped you, Castiel? What ruined you this time?”

Cas doesn’t hear the question, there’s too much static building up in his brain, blocking her out. He killed Dean, he killed Dean and he will never be able to forgive himself.

“Never mind.” Naomi tuts, settles the metal crown on his head once again. “We’ll get it eventually.”

No.

This isn’t real. She’s dead, she’d been dead for years and Dean is fine and this isn’t, it can’t be real it isn’t real.

IT’S NOT REAL.

Cas screams, fists his hands in his hair and rips, focusing on the sensation, the almost pain, to ground him.

The sensation.

A sensation he caused.

Realisation comes crested with another wave of panic but this time he tries to fight back – resist the crippling, debilitating fear that threatens to send him curling up into a ball on the floor.

He has control of his body again, somehow. He doesn’t know how for sure, but he has a vague inkling that he actually has the panic attack to thank for it, that in torturing Castiel, Lucifer created his own undoing.

It wouldn’t be the first time someone has accidentally triggered a strength born of terror and the fearsome desire not to hurt the people he loves that enabled Cas to push back, take control. That potent mixture of fear and determination was enough to overwrite Naomi’s brain control once, maybe it’s enough to temporarily cow the devil, too.

But whatever it is, Cas is sure it’ll only be temporary. He needs to make the most of this – needs to warn Sam and Dean that he can no longer be trusted. He’s not going to try and force Lucifer out entirely, they still need him to take on Amara, but he knows that whatever plan Lucifer is pursuing against Sam and Dean, it relies on them being oblivious to the devil in their midst.

Cas swallows down another bolt of panic, pulls his phone out from his pocket and starts to type in Dean’s number with shaking hands.

He presses dial, and Lucifer laughs.

“Oh, sweet little Castiel,” he says, as he takes control of their vessel again, cutting the call before it even starts to ring. “Did you really think it’d be that easy?”

Castiel’s terror ebbs, replaced by a wave of bitter, furious disappointment.

_That was a trick._

“Too right. As if you could really take back control. This is my vessel, Castiel. I only keep you around for the entertainment value.”

Cas doesn’t say anything, but Lucifer can feel the self-disgust sloughing off him. Lucifer tricked him, and he fell for it. He thought he’d gained back control, but really he’d just been handed it for a laugh, or to snap him out of his attack – after all, it’s not much fun performing for an audience if the audience is too busy crying behind the sofa to pay attention.

“You know, Castiel, I was having so much fun here, I’d almost forgotten about your little boyfriend. Thanks for reminding me.”

_Please._ He begs, too little pride left not to, too much common sense to think it’ll do anything but harm.

“Please, what?”

_Please, leave them out of this. Slate your bloodlust on Amara._

“You know, having me in your vessel has probably had a dampening effect on your ability to listen to prayers – my channel is pretty busy. How’s about I shut it off for a bit and we have a listen, see who’s calling out for you?”

The apparent subject change doesn’t fool Cas. He knows exactly who is praying to him, can feel Dean’s presence like an itch in his bones. It’s been there for so long he almost doesn’t notice it anymore. Only when it spikes – times when he assumes Dean is more in danger than usual, could use angelic healing or strength.

It’s pulsing pretty strongly right now, but that’s to be expected. Dean wants his help. Dean always wants his help, very rarely wants him. No matter how much Lucifer wants to claim otherwise.

There’s a sudden jolt, tinged with fear, and then Cas hears Dean’s voice in his head. A formal prayer.

_Cas, please, I – fuck, I know you said, but Cas, man. I need you. I fucking need you._

Lucifer laughs.

“Well, you heard the man. He _needs_ you.”

_What have you done?_

The panic starts to rise in Cas’s chest again.

“Time to go home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Four whole chapters in a week. Don't I spoil you ;P
> 
> Let me know if you've enjoyed it. Unfortunately I'm needy writer trash so the more people validate me, the more motivated I am to write. THEM'S THE BREAKS.


	12. Chapter 12

Lucifer sticks his finger in his ear, grimaces.

“Is it like this all the time?”

Cas doesn’t respond.

“I mean, the _noise._ How is one man louder than a million, billion Satanists? How is this not driving you insane?” He pauses. “Oh, wait, you said yes to me – maybe it already did.” He snickers.

_Why are you enjoying this so much?_

Lucifer snorts, changes Cas’s expression into a derisive sneer. Cas should be used to it by now, this rearranging of his features without his permission, but somehow it still stings as badly as the first time. It’s not just that, either. Lucifer is always in motion. Cas isn't sure whether he does it on purpose, or if he's just a fidget. Regardless, there’s always something moving – fingers twitching and drumming against his side, foot tapping, lip being bitten. A constant reminder that Cas is trapped inside his own body and he can't do anything about it. A thousand little itches he can't scratch, a plethora of annoying habits he can't stop his vessel from acting out.  Cas’s face and his voice and his hands all someone else’s to control.

The only thing he had left were his prayers, and now Lucifer has his claws in them as well.

For the first time in a long while, Castiel contemplates abandoning this vessel to its fate. A poor legacy to leave brave Jimmy Novak with, but maybe, maybe it’s for the best.

This body might not have been Cas’s vessel for long in the scale of his existence, but it is his home. He’s suffered and loved in it, done profoundly good and profoundly bad things. Giving it up would be a hideous blow, but, then again, what’s one more sacrifice to throw on the fire.

And it wouldn’t even just be out of a desire to escape. Cas is holding this vessel together, letting Lucifer inhabit it without consequence. Were he to depart it would start to degrade like any other inferior shell. Maybe Cas leaving would start the hourglass, cap Lucifer’s time as finite and force him to turn his attention to Amara.

Or maybe he’d ignore her and accelerate his plan against Sam and Dean, instead.

The panic starts to rise up in Cas again and he shoves it down, hopes Lucifer attributes it to the fact that he’s about to take them to see Dean, and not to Cas’s frozen inability to decide one way or another – stay with the devil or flee.

“Worried about your boy-toy, Castiel?”

_He’s not—_ Cas trails off, unable to finish the sentence. His protests sound hollow, fake. Lucifer must agree, because he laughs, one harsh bark.

And then he teleports them to Kansas.

 

*

 

They land, invisible, beside a pale faced Dean. He’s sitting in a dark alley, staring dead ahead.

_He looks even worse than you._ Lucifer comments.

_What have you done to him?_

_Me? Nothing, yet. This is all him – boring neurosis and panic about the most inane things. Sam probably got a hangnail and now Dean’s decided he’s a bad mommy and doesn’t deserve to live anymore._

_Don’t mock him._

_I could comfort him, if you’d rather. Give him a shoulder to cry on._

_Don’t._

_A tender hand to—_

_—shut up._

_A willing body to warm his bed._

_SHUT UP!_ Cas snaps, recoils and berates himself as he feels anger tinge Lucifer’s thoughts. The devil doesn’t like being screamed at, and it drives him to a further small cruelty. As if he needed much provoking in the first place.

_Touchy. You do realise this is my body now. The only way you’re going to learn what Dean’s cock feels like on your tongue is if I decide I want you to._

_That doesn’t concern me._ Cas’s tone is flat, dead. He’s pushing down his hatred and his despair, trying to mask it with indifference.

_Really? You haven’t dreamed about what it’d feel like to have his tender touch. Or maybe you like it a bit_ rougher, _maybe you want to take that pretty face and slap it around a little, leave bitemarks on his thighs and bruises so severe he can’t sit down for a week._

_I won’t rise to this._

_Too bad._ Lucifer sniggers. Cas can pretend it doesn’t bother him all he wants, Lucifer can feel every word hit home. Cas wants Dean in every way possible, and despite the protesting and angsty handwringing, there was always a little sliver of hope that he might get him. Now, though, Cas is riding shotgun with the devil, and even if he gets what he wants, it’ll be irrevocably tainted.

_He won’t be expecting us for a while yet. How about we explore?_

_Whatever you want._

_Now you’re getting it, Castiel._ Lucifer quips, teleports again.

He knows exactly where he’s going, could sense Sam Winchester from miles off. It doesn’t take a genius to work out that Dean was following him, and that he’ll have had something to do with this recent distress call.

Lucifer pops up just in time to see Sam give his girlfriend a farewell kiss, watch wistfully as she walks off.

This is too fucking good.

So, Dean’s in a tizzy about Sam meeting someone in the early hours of the morning.

_Aw, look. He’s upset that he’s getting replaced, that soon his life will have no meaning. Do you think he’ll top himself when they get married?_

_That isn’t why he’s upset._

_Well, you would be the expert in what hurts Dean Winchester. You seem to do it an awful lot, especially for someone who claims to love him._

Cas ignores the stab he feels at that. Lucifer has a point – it’s one of the worst things about him. He never torments with a lie when the truth would do.

_You’ve changed your tune. First you think I’m a liar, now you think I’m not. Which is it?_

_Both._

_So morally grey, Castiel. Come to the darkside, have a glance at things in black and white for a while._

_That doesn’t even make sense._

_Yes it does. I’m helping you take down the darkness. That makes me your white knight._

_If you insist._

_And do you know what that makes you?_

_The pawn?_

_Clever boy._

_If you insist on carrying on this ridiculous chess analogy, shouldn’t you be the queen?_

_No-one likes a smart-ass, Castiel. Besides, you can promote a pawn into any piece you want, and I like the knight better. Two steps forward and one to the side, you never know where he’s going to end up._

_You know a lot about chess._ The ‘for someone who spent millennia locked in a cage and hates the species that invented it’ goes unsaid, but Lucifer hears it anyway, snarls.

_Don’t think I’ve forgotten your hand in my re-imprisonment, and don’t think you can distract me so easily. You know I came here for a purpose._

Cas fights the urge to tell Lucifer to leave the girl out of this, he knows doing so will only draw attention to her.

_Castiel, sweetheart, I’m utterly indifferent to your desires. I’m going to use her whether you want me to or not._

Lucifer follows her until she’s out of sight and then he grabs her, teleports away.

 

*

 

Maria is twenty minutes late to work. She rushes into the bakery, apologises with hasty insincerity and throws on her apron. She’s told that this is her final warning, and that if she gets one more strike she will be fired.

She doesn’t seem too upset, grins an uncharacteristically nasty grin, it unnerves her manager, throws the woman off and stops her mid lecture.

“I— just, make sure you work an extra twenty at the end of your shift to cover it.”

“Sure thing, boss.” In the half-light Maria’s eyes look almost black, and her manager shivers, turns away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hadn't abandoned this fic, don't worry! The opposite in fact. I was kinda blown over by how many people were actually still reading so I got my arse into gear and...... I have now got a finished first draft! I just need to type it all up because I was making the most of the 3 day long British summer and writing in the garden. 
> 
> Updates should be pretty regular, but you could probably bribe me to make them more regular with comments and kudos wink wink nudge nudge hahahahaha ;) 
> 
> I know that's shameless but I need the validation okay, I'm doing this for free, the warm fuzzies are my only payment.


	13. Chapter 13

It’s not a conscious decision to pray to Cas. He can’t help it, it just tumbles out of his mouth, for better or worse, before he can stop it.

It’s a fucking lie, anyway. He doesn’t need Cas here, he just fucking wants him. But that line got blurred a long goddamn time ago. He wants him so much it feels like fucking need, carved into his chest, aching and pulsing.

Shut the fuck up, Dean.

His phone buzzes and he doesn’t even need to read it to know who it is.

—On my way

He wants to text back and say no, you’ve got more important things to do. I’ll be fine, I am fine.

—Thanks

Somehow that comes out instead. The wrong thing to say, and not just because he shouldn’t be pulling Cas away from his mission. It’s also woefully goddamn inadequate to express the depth and breadth of his gratitude, for this and for everything else. A pathetic stand in for all the things he wants to tell Cas but knows he never fucking can. I love you and I miss you and please stop fucking leaving me because I know it’s my fault you’re not here half the time but that doesn’t make it any fucking easier.

But he can’t say that – he won’t say that to Cas and end up ruining his goddamn life too – so he just says thanks. And yeah, it’s a fucking towel to mop up the ocean, but at least it’s a start. It’s something to the nothing he feels like he’s been giving Cas for so long.

Fuck.

The worst thing is that Dean feels better now. Just the knowledge that Cas is on his way makes all this a bit easier to deal with. He can share the burden with his best friend, someone who he can trust to either confirm that he’s not a crazy, paranoid bastard, or who’ll give him a fucking slap upside the head and tell him to stop being such an idiot and seeing things where they aren’t.

Thing is, experience has taught Dean that it’s very rarely paranoia, but rarely isn’t always. He needs someone to talk to, sound this out with. And if it just so happens that the only person he can do that with right now is the bells and whistles unrequited love of his life, well, bully for him.

Of course, this thing with Cas isn’t really his most pressing issue right now, but there’s a reason Dean is focussing so hard on that whole mess, dragging it up from its usual position of ever present, background angst and letting it take centre stage when usually he’d just do his best to push it down and repress it.

Because yeah, any kind of distraction, even a fucking horrible one, is better than the blinding, clawing panic that Sam is back on that dark path again and there’s fuck all Dean can do to rein him back in.

And let’s face it, Dean knows he’s to blame. He took his eye off Sam, was too busy being worried about Cas, all fucked up and hurt by Rowena, and Amara and all her creepy, horrible bullshit. He didn’t see the warning signs with Sam, didn’t even notice how bad things must have been getting.

 _This is your fault_ is a pretty constant refrain in Dean’s head, whether he deserves it or not. That’s just the way his fucking personality works. But this time, this time he know it’s not just the fucking metaphorical demons in his head. This time he knows it’s true.

And he knows he deserves to suffer for that, but at the same time, if he thinks about it too much he’s gonna fucking collapse under the weight of it, and he’s not allowed to. Not now. Not while they have shit to do.

So instead he thinks about something else, about dragging Cas away from his Big Important Mission just because he got a little bit panicky. Still a shitty move, but at least a smaller one, one he can deal with.

Dean’s phone buzzes again.

—Whatever’s going on, it’s not your fault

—Get outta my fucking head, Cas

—I don’t have to be in your head, I know what you’re like

Dean doesn’t know how to reply to that, deflects instead.

—Eyes on the road, James Dean

 

*

 

A hand on Dean’s shoulder has him jumping up, knife drawn before he even consciously realises it. He’s surprised to see Cas. It’s been half an hour at most, he thought he’d have longer to pull himself together, didn’t want Cas to have to see him like this.

“Dean?” Cas’s tone is worried, and yeah, of course it’d be. All he has to go on is a garbled prayer and the fucking state of Dean, sitting in a dark alley by himself. He’s not even drinking to drown his problems. Is that progress, or a sign of something really fucked up?

Dean realises he’s still brandishing the knife, tucks it back away and draws in a shaky breath. He needs to tell Cas what he saw, but he’s got no idea how to force the words out.

Cas gives him a quick, appraising look, and then he pulls Dean into a hug. Dean fights not to melt into it, but he’s weak. He grasps onto Cas like he’s the only thing holding him upright, lets it go on long past any kind of decency, long past two friends comforting each other. Dean can count on his fingers the amount of hugs he’s shared with Cas, and to get two so close together feels like skirting around a dangerous high. He fists his hand in the back of Cas’s coat, just fucking breathes.

Eventually Cas pulls away, because Dean was never fucking going to.

“You’re upset.” Cas notes, astutely.

“No shit, Cas.” Dean prides himself in the way his voice doesn’t shake.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“No.”

“Should you talk about it?”

“Yeah.”

“Would a drink help?”

“I saw Sam with a girl.” Dean blurts out. Cas waits for Dean to continue, obviously able to sense that this isn’t the whole of the problem. “He snuck out to meet her, properly sneaky, ass o’clock in the morning.”

Dean stutters to a halt there, unable to carry on just now. He needs a moment to gather himself, needs some kind of intervention from Cas.

“What happened?” Cas asks, eventually.

“I, it might be nothing—”

“You don’t think it’s nothing.”

Dean huffs out a laugh, devoid of all humour.

“Server spilled a salt cellar. Didn’t hit the girl, but she flinched, flipped the fuck out at her for it.”

Cas nods, slowly.

“Did you get a chance to test her?”

Dean rolls his eyes.

“No. I fucking panicked and ran out here, ‘cause I’m a shitty fucking hunter and a worse brother.”

“Dean,” Cas’s tone is soft, frustrated – like this is a battle he’s been having with Dean for years and he’s getting sick of losing it. “You’re neither of those things.”

Dean snorts, and Cas, clearly aware of the kind of mood he’s in, doesn’t press the issue.

“There could be a few explanations.”

“Yeah, like what?”

“Maybe she was just tired and irritable.” At Dean’s withering look he shrugs, tries again. “Maybe she is a demon and Sam doesn’t know.”

“Or maybe Sam is hosting Lucifer and she’s giving him the blood he needs to keep it up!”

Cas sighs. “There’s an easy way to find this out.”

“Yeah.”

“Do you know where she is now?”

Dean shrugs. “It’s not a big town, can’t be too hard to work it out.”


	14. Chapter 14

Lucifer teleports to the outskirts of Lebanon, becomes visible and walks back to where he left Dean.

_I don’t know how you can bear travelling like this._

_Take it up with Metatron, not me._

_Oh don’t worry, Castiel. He’s on the list._

_List?_ Cas isn’t sure he wants to know, but then again, his capacity for absorbing horrible things without being broken by them has been expanding greatly in recent weeks. He just watched Lucifer slit a girl’s wrists and summon a demon into her convulsing body, and he only screamed for it to stop once before he gave up and accepted that he would have to watch it happen.

_A lot of people have annoyed me, Castiel. You and your darling Winchesters are at the head of the list, but don’t presume you’re the only ones._

Lucifer reaches Dean, still in the same alley he left him, puts a hand on his shoulder.

_Really, those hunter reflexes are getting a bit slow. Someone else is going to kill him before I get the chance if I’m not careful._

_You said you wouldn’t kill him._

_Oh yes, I did, didn’t I? Oops._ He leaves it deliberately ambiguous as to which was the mistake. Cas notices, tries not to care.

Dean leaps to his feet and draws a knife, too slow to stop him getting killed if that’d been Lucifer’s plan, but at least he hasn’t completely shut down.

“Dean?” Lucifer channels all Cas’s worry and fear into the word. God, but it’s handy having a live in version of the person you’re pretending to be.

Dean relaxes so quickly it’s comical, tucks his knife away. Lucifer marvels, for the hundredth thousandth time, that he isn’t dead. I mean, he’s just so _careless_ around Castiel. No tests, no codewords. He’s too busy trying not to cry with relief to consider this might not be who he thinks it is.

 _He’s so happy to see you._ Lucifer informs Cas, as though Cas can’t tell that for himself.

 _Only because I’m useful._ Huh, so maybe he can’t.

_Eugh. I don’t know who’s more pathetic, you or him. Self-hatred isn’t a competitive sport, you know._

He sees Dean’s arms twitch, like he wants to move, or reach out, takes the cue. He pulls Dean into a hug, feels the idiot relax against him. The both of them are so touch starved, so desperate for each other’s affection. It’d be a passible form of torture, keeping them so close but never allowing them to reach out, if they weren’t so bloody used to it.

As it is, though, it’s much more fun to use affection to hurt Castiel than it is cruelty. He probably suffers more when he’s forced to be a party to Lucifer’s kindness to Dean than he would if Lucifer whipped out a knife and started slicing him up.

Okay, he probably wouldn’t, but that would ruin the great, big set piece. The one huge cruelty that all of these little ones are building up to. He’s been toying with Cas something awful, and not solely for his own amusement. The thing he’s found with grand tortures, is that you can’t just leap into them from a standing start. Your victim tends to just go boringly numb, waste all your effort. No, you have to warm them up, flex their despair a little bit so that when the final blow comes it isn’t too much, doesn’t shut them down entirely. You need to make sure they _feel_ it.

But Lucifer probably shouldn’t be thinking about that too loud, Castiel is sharing a body with him, things do tend to drift across. Still, that idiot is a little busy right now. He’s revelling in Dean’s touch, savouring it like it’s the last time he’ll get to feel it.

If only he knew.

Lucifer lets the hug go on until it becomes clear that Dean just isn’t going to let go.

_You two are disturbingly pathetic, you know that._

_Please, don’t._

_Don’t what, don’t taint this for you? WELL GUESS WHAT, those aren’t your hands, Castiel. It’s not your body or your touch. You can’t claim any of this. You’re just a voyeur, a sick little creep twitching the curtains._ He feels Cas’s relief dissipate, just like that. So, fucking, easy.

 _You couldn’t let me have just this one thing?_ It’s a good job a bitter tone can’t kill, because damn, Lucifer would be a set of wings charcoaled on the ground.

_No. I couldn’t. This is what you signed up for. No kindness, no relief. Just me psyching myself up for the big fight using your misery. Better than steroids, better than adrenaline. Can’t beat it._

Lucifer pulls away from Dean, looks him in the eye and tries to gauge how to play this. A bit of state the obvious, maybe some gentle questions. Trying to get this idiot to talk about the important stuff is easy, even if Castiel makes it sound like sellotaping water to a shiny surface. You just have to push the right buttons, let him do it for himself.

“Would a drink help?”

The insinuation that he needs alcohol to talk about his problems seems to do it. Dean opens up, spills about seeing Sam with the girl and then grinds to a halt.

_What is it with the constant need for validation? Yes, I am still listening, you can carry on talking just spit it out already, jesus christ._

When Dean does eventually spit it out, Lucifer nearly laughs, covers it with a slow, solemn nod. He couldn’t have planned this any better if he tried. This was literally his plan, stick a demon in one of Sam’s associates and make sure they crossed paths with Dean.

Except Dean is so fucking paranoid he’s seeing demons everywhere now.

_He’s not paranoid._

_Did I ask for your opinion?_

Lucifer lays it on pretty thick, capitalises on the swell of sad disappointment Cas feels when Dean shit talks himself and lets it play out in his tone.

_You’re not a worthless waste of human skin, I loooooove you Dean, why won’t you love yourself back you brave and beautiful soul?_

_That’s not what I sound like._

_No, you’re right, you sound like this._ Lucifer internally lets loose an anguished wail so loud it makes Cas’s consciousness throb. He keeps on going until Cas eventually interrupts.

_I get it._

_No, I don’t think you do. You might think I’m torturing you here, but really, being stuck in here with that klaxon going off 24/7 isn’t easy._

_You’re welcome to leave._

_Nice try. Just out of curiosity, did you think it would work?_

_No._

Lucifer stops toying with him for a moment, wrenches Cas’s focus back to the outside world to make sure he hears Dean’s furious accusation against Sam.

“Or maybe Sam is hosting Lucifer and she’s giving him the blood he needs to keep it up!”

 _He’s pretty angry with Sam for letting the devil in._ Lucifer notes, wryly. _What do you reckon he’ll do to him when they catch up with each other._

_Nothing._

_Huh. No big bloody fireworks, fistfights, a tearful stab in the abdomen?_

_He’ll forgive Sam. He always does._

_Interesting. Do you reckon he’ll forgive you?_

Cas doesn’t answer that. It’s what he hasn’t been allowing himself to think. Dean will only see this one way, a betrayal.

It’ll be worth it, though. He has to cling to that thought.

_Oh trust me, Castiel. It’ll be worth it all right._


	15. Chapter 15

They find her by accident.

Dean’s caffeine pills have well and truly kicked in and he feels so high strung and antsy that he’s about ready to vibrate out of his skin. Cas notices, heals the effect away with a casual brush of his fingers on Dean’s cheek. Dean fights the red flush he can feel rising, focuses on how much better he feels.

He’s still shit scared and guilty, but nowhere near as much, not like it’s going to swallow him whole and refuse to spit him out the other side. He makes a mental note never to fucking take those things again. Unfortunately, Cas heals away a little bit too much of the effect, leaving Dean yawning and rubbing at his eyes – not optimum hunting capacity.

Which is how they end up in the only place serving coffee at this time of the morning. A bakery.

And who should be working at this fucking bakery? Obviously it’s the fucking woman. She’s standing with her back to them, and Dean doesn’t recognise her at first. It takes Cas’s elbow to his ribs and hissed, “demon”, for him to make the connection. He can’t be sure, though, not just from the back of her head,  so while Cas makes himself scarce – because they don’t want her to realise that she’s been clocked by an angel – Dean sticks around.

He orders his coffee, pretends to hum and haw over what pastry he wants, desperately wanting the woman to turn around, needing her not to be the one from the diner.

He is, of course, disappointed. Eventually she turns away from the bread she was slicing, chastises him for wasting her co-worker’s time.

“Are you planning on standing there all day?”

“Uh, it just all looks so good.” Dean blurts out.

She smirks. “The apple pie is to die for.”

“I’ll take that, then.” Is that a dig? A demon who knows him – or has Sam been talking about him to her?

Dean takes his order, beats a hasty retreat outside to where Cas is.

“It’s definitely her.” The words stick in his mouth, and he hadn’t realised just quite how much he’d been clinging to the hope that this was all just a fucked up coincidence.

“That doesn’t mean the worst.” Cas says, and he sounds so fucking sure that Dean wants to believe him. That’s not how it works with them, though. It never fucking is.

“When has it not meant the worst with us?” Dean snaps, grimaces and immediately wishes he could take it back at Cas’s kicked puppy frown.

“We need to confront her, there’s a chance Sam has no idea.”

“You think he wouldn’t have tested her?”

“Maybe, but that doesn’t mean anything. Maybe she didn’t start out a demon.”

“Whole lot of maybe’s there, Cas.”

Cas shrugs, puts a hand on Dean’s shoulder.

“This is Sam. We can’t assume the worst.”

“Yeah.” Dean’s agreement sounds feeble, even to his own fucking ears.

“We can’t confront her here. She could make a scene, kill innocent people.”

“So what, then?”

“We wait until her shift ends, follow her, and...”

“And we find out what she knows.” The euphemism tastes bitter on Dean’s tongue.

 

*

 

They pull the ambush off without a hitch. The demon finishes her shift, walks out the back door and into the empty alleyway, where Dean is waiting.

She catches his eye and smiles, obviously confident in her cover.

“Apple pie guy.”

Dean smirks back at her, calls. “Dean. And, uh, I never caught your name.”

She doesn’t get a chance to reply. Cas materialises out of the shadows, grabs her and gags her with his hand, making them both invisible. He meets Dean at the car and they stuff her in the trunk – all Dean’s motors now come with demonproofed storage – drive to a secluded spot a little way away. There are a lot of abandoned barns in this part of Kansas, luckily for them. This might get messy, and they don’t want anyone calling the cops before they get their answer.

They haul her out of the trunk, dump her in the middle of a devil’s trap that Cas painted while Dean kept watch on the demon as she worked her shift.

“Dean Winchester. And there I thought I’d got away with this.” She drawls.

“Got away with what?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know.” She smiles up at him through her fringe, a caricatured picture of innocence.

“Yeah, I fucking would.” He growls, draws the demon knife.

“Ooh, scary.” She turns to look at Castiel. “You know, I thought I sensed something heavenly earlier, but stupidly, I thought it was to do with Michaelsword over here. Didn’t think it was an honest to god angel.”

“Michaelsword?” Dean hasn’t been called that in years, and he doesn’t like the implication.

“Others might have forgotten, Dean, but we remember. He remembers.”

“Who?” He knows who, but he can’t, he won’t.

“That would be telling.”

“Dean.” Cas’s tone is rough, broken. It makes Dean want to pull him close and it makes him want to run a million fucking miles. It’s bad news, the fucking worst.

“What?”

“Look at her arms.”

No. No no no no no no fucking no. He can just leave now, if he hasn’t seen it, it’s not true, and everything will be okay. Just don’t look, don’t see the proof you’ve been fucking expecting and dreading in the same breath.

But of course, he looks.

 There are two long, fresh cuts along the demon’s wrists. They’re barely scabbed, enough that they must have been done today, either just before or just after Dean saw her and Sam together in the diner. He didn’t look at her arms then, why didn’t he look at her arms?

Dean hears his own voice, but it doesn’t seem like it’s coming from his mouth. He’s disconnected, severed from reality.

“How did you get these?”

He doesn’t hear her reply. There’s static building up in his head and it’s drowning everything else out. He can’t, he doesn’t know what to do. He turns away almost without realising it, can’t bear to look at those wounds, what they represent.

Not again, he can’t do this again. He can’t watch Lucifer take Sam for a ride, he can’t listen to him talk with his brother’s voice and taunt him with Sam’s memories and hopes and dreams and fears.

He feels Cas grasp hold of his shaking hands but he can’t bear to be touched right now, jerks back out of his grip. At any other time he’d be devastated at the hurt look he gets for that, but right now he can’t bring himself to care.

Not fucking again.

He sees Cas’s eyes widen, fixed on a point behind him, turns around too late to avoid the blow.

And then everything is dark.


	16. Chapter 16

 They accidentally-on-purpose stumble across Sam’s girlfriend in the bakery after Lucifer makes sure to expunge every drop of caffeine from Dean’s system, maybe pumps in a little extra melatonin too. Oops.

He gives Dean a pantomime nudge, draws his attention to the girl – well, not a girl any more – with her back to the door.

Lucifer slips outside and leaves Dean to identify her, hoping he got the right one.  He never took Sam for a cheater, but it’d be just the annoyingly stupid detail that could throw off his plan. It’d be awkward now if he had to summon another demon. Can’t be having too many of them in on the big secret, that the actual King is back, and riding shotgun with demonic enemy number 2.

Still, they’re demons, it’s not like they’re particularly valuable. With Cas’s grace giving him a backdoor jack into heaven he doesn’t even need their blood.

_What?_

_We’ve already had the eavesdropping conversation, Castiel._

_You’re using me to tap into heaven?_

_I believe the phrase is, well duh. You think they left me with my heavenly line intact when they threw me into the dirt?_

_I, I never thought about it._

_Why do you think I created demons in the first place? Obviously it was fun to ruin God’s proudest creations, but that wasn’t the only reason. I’m not a natural resident of hell, I knew I wouldn’t just be able to suck up all the juice it generated because I fancied it. Demon blood gave me a connection, let me control all that power – otherwise I’d have ended up like you after you slurped up all of purgatory._

_So why aren’t you still doing it?_ Loathe as Cas would be to have to consume demon blood, it’s better than the alternative. Lucifer with access to his full complement of heavenly powers.

_It worked fine for a while, but with you here, well, I don’t need it anymore. And power from God’s seat? Much more satisfying. I haven't felt this juiced up in years, Castiel. And it's all thanks to you. I mean, you could offer me Sam "the vessel of destiny" Winchester on a plate and I'd turn my nose up at him. I'm at full strength again for the first time in millennia, and it's so much better than I remembered._

Cas wants to hurl, every single message his brain sends out is telling him to keel over and throw up his guts. But he can’t, obviously, because Lucifer is in control.

_I assumed you knew._

_That I was giving you a route to heaven? No._

_You’re giving me a bit of a boost, it’s nothing to be ashamed of. It’ll help, with the fight against Amara._

_If you ever decide to have that fight._

_I will, eventually. Before she unravels the entire world. I hope she starts with America. I’ve really started to dislike it here. I’ll probably step in before she gets to the equator. I like the sun. Feels good on my face after all of those years in hell._

_You don’t mean that._

_Maybe I do, maybe I don’t. You’ll just have to wait and see, won’t you._

_*_

Dean comes back outside with a coffee and a brown paper bag, clutched in entirely too white fingers.

_Is that a cake he has in there? Good to see his priorities are straight. I mean, honestly, I’m surprised he isn’t 40 stone. I suppose the constant angsting must burn some of it off, but even he can’t be that fucked up that constantly. Is this you, Cas? Have you been keeping him svelte? Wouldn’t want your boyfriend getting too porky, would you?_

_Dean’s physical appearance makes no difference to me._

_You say that now. Maybe I’ll take a few inches off his cock, see how you like him then._

_I think you’d find that hard to explain away._

_I think you’re lacking in imagination. Maybe I should—_

“It’s definitely her.” Dean interrupts with this angry, defeated tone that makes Lucifer tingle all up inside.

 _You don’t have to take such delight in this!_ Cas can’t help but snap.

 _Of course I don’t._ Lucifer laughs. _I just want to. You two are delicious._

Lucifer marshals up his Castiel Serious and Earnest Face _ **®**_ , throws the full weight of all his angelic conviction behind it. He’s the father of lies. He can make anything sound like the truth – and coupled with a face his victim trusts, well. He almost wants to fuck up somewhere to make it into a challenge.

Yeah, right. The devil doesn’t take risks. Not anymore. Not when it comes to this obstinate trio.

“That doesn’t mean the worst.”

Dean lashes out, the way he tends to do when struggling to reconcile uncomfortable truths. That’s fine, though. Lucifer has something in his arsenal for that. He digs deep into the pit of Castiel’s misery – deeper than he needs to, just to torture him a little more – lets a flash of it shine through and is rewarded with a wince from Dean.

_How much of the world would Amara have to unravel to make it permanent, beyond repair?_

_How long can I afford to spend jerking your strings before I go and sock her, is that what you’re asking?_

_Perhaps._

_Considering she’s still throwing hissy fits and trying to attract the attention of a dead God, long enough._

_He’s not—_

_Dead, absent. What’s the difference, he isn’t coming back._

_I have faith._

_What you have is an attempt to distract me. You know that begging me to leave Dean alone won’t work so you’re trying, very poorly, to direct my focus elsewhere. I expected better from you, something more subtle._

_I’m not trying to—_

Lucifer silences him with easy brutality – leaves a smarting wound at the centre of whatever constitutes Castiel’s being now – and turns his attention fully back to Dean.

“Whole lot of maybe’s there, Cas.”

Lucifer dismisses Dean’s doubt with an easy shrug, touches his shoulder. The pathetic bastard leans forward a little, like he wants to follow the touch.

_I was less touch starved than that when I came out of my millennia long solitary confinement._

_There’s nothing wrong with craving touch._

_Is that what you tell yourself, to help yourself sleep at night, when you’ve finished jerking off to the memory of the last handshake you shared?_

_If that will make you shut up, yes. That’s what I do._

_It’s no fun if you play along._

Castiel wants to snap, _good,_ but he remembers what Lucifer said last time Cas refused to entertain him. If Lucifer doesn’t get his fun from Castiel, he gets it from the entrails of those in the immediate vicinity.

_I wonder how much Dean relies on his second kidney._

_Please, don’t._ Cas is too tired to put up proper resistance, and Lucifer seems to realise he won’t get much more of a rise of him, gives a dramatic sigh and turns his attention fully to Dean.

“We wait until her shift ends, follow her, and...”

“And we find out what she knows.” Dean finishes with a scowl that makes Lucifer grin. _Torturing people, entertaining things. The family business._

 

*

 

The “ambush” goes ahead smoothly. It’s almost like the demon in question has been ordered to allow herself to be captured. Strange, that.

Lucifer snuffs Cas out for a moment, grabs the demon (Lucifer doesn’t know her name. She’s a nothing, bottom of the pile. If he asks her name she might get ideas above her station), turns invisible and whispers in her ear. She nods, eager to please her lord and master, and then reverts to hissing and spitting, hell-hath-no-fury type as she’s transported to some dingy barn outside Lebanon.

The drive is silent, tense on Dean’s part. He’s gripping the steering wheel of his new car – Lucifer would ask after the black monstrosity, if he gave a singular shit – so tight he’s in danger of leaving indents in it. Castiel would probably fumble some awkward attempt to calm Dean down, diffuse the situation. Lucifer wants Dean as tense as possible, fiddles with the radio using his grace and makes sure every song Dean hears is something that he hates, until he snaps it off with a tense glare.

They haul the demon into a devil’s trap and Lucifer backs off, winks at her behind Dean’s back.

“Dean Winchester. And there I thought I’d got away with this.”

_Very scooby doo. I should have picked a better actor._

_You should be on Amara’s tail._

_Your broken record act is going to translate to some broken bones soon._

They watch the demon play Dean. It’s a fine line she’s been instructed to tread, don’t be too eager to give away the boss’s secrets, but do tell him what was specified. It’s not a line she treads fantastically, but Dean seems too keyed up to notice.

Mention of the Michaelsword shakes him right up, has him practically snarling, balanced on the balls of his feet and twitching his knife minutely.

He doesn’t even notice the good bit, Lucifer has to point it out to him.

_Good situational awareness he’s got. And you said he was intelligent._

_He is._

_Then why hasn’t he noticed that she’s BLEEDING FROM THE WRISTS?_ Lucifer snarls at Cas, who recoils from the force of the shout.

“Look at her arms.”

The look on Dean’s face when he sees the cuts is priceless. Denial and terror and hatred and disgust. A glorious cocktail of all the things Lucifer savours the most.

Dean mumbles something incomprehensible, eyes wide.

_Bless, he thinks he’s using people words._

_His entire world is falling apart, because of_ your _tricks._

_Oops. Have I been a naughty boy?_

Dean spins around, facing away from the demon.

 _Turning his back on a devil’s trap._ Lucifer smirks, as he drags his foot through a line in the sigil. _What an idiot._

Lucifer can see from Dean’s stance and the way goosebumps are standing out on his skin that the last thing he wants right now is a friendly, comforting touch. So, of course, that’s what he gives him.

Dean recoils instinctively, and even though Cas knows why, he still phantom-flinches.

Lucifer makes eye-contact with the demon behind Dean, fakes a look of wide-eyed surprise and panic.

The demon punches Dean in the mouth and he crumples, like a lead balloon, or all of Castiel’s hopes and dreams.

Too. Easy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You nearly didn't have a chapter today because I forgot it was a monday because it's a bank holiday here hahahaha oops. I AM SO TIRED. Love meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.


	17. Chapter 17

Dean wakes up with a banging headache and a bad, bad feeling. He hasn’t been out for long. He know this, because Cas is grappling with the demon that smashed him upside the head, teeth gritted and smiting rage in his eyes. There’s something wrong with the scene, though, and it takes Dean’s possible-concussion fuzzy brain a few moments to parse it out. Cas is an angel, and this thing is just a run of the mill black-eyed demon. There shouldn’t be a struggle, it should just be bang and you’re out. Right?

Unless it’s something more powerful. Something on Azazel or Crowley’s level.

The demon flips Cas and pins him to the floor and that finally pushes Dean into action. He grabs Ruby’s knife from where it’d fallen to the ground, stabs it into the demon’s back.

Lightning crackles and sparks under her skin, and he thinks that’s it, everything is gonna be okay now. He’s wrong. She turns to look at Dean, grins, and then a column of black smoke pours out of the meatsuit’s mouth, down into the dirt. Cas makes a lunge for her, and so does Dean, but she just passes through their hands like, well, like fucking smoke.

Dean punches the ground after her, swears.

“What the fuck was that?”

“Knight of hell.” Cas grunts, getting to his feet and dusting himself off. He looks wobbly, and he’s sporting a black eye that doesn’t seem to be healing.

Dean shakes his head. “No chance, Abaddon is dead.”

“Abaddon was the last one trained by Cain. Obviously someone in hell has been busy trying to replicate her.”

“You think it’s, y’know?” Dean can’t bring himself to say it, not yet.

“No. Whoever did this didn’t quite succeed – that demon was stronger than average, but not as strong as Abaddon. Lucifer wouldn’t have failed.”

Dean snorts. “She was powerful enough to get the drop on me and give you a run for your money. Doesn’t seem like failure to me.”

“We’re still alive, aren’t we?” Cas says in a strained voice, and that sets alarm bells ringing in Dean’s head. He sounds like he’s in pain and trying to hide it – and Dean hadn’t even considered that he might be injured. Thoughtless fucking bastard that he is.

“She hurt you.”

Cas shakes his head, rolls his shoulders cautiously and winces.

“I’ll be fine. We have more important things to deal with – we need to get to L— to Sam, before she warns him.”

Dean snorts out a bitter laugh.

“Not so eager to believe he’s innocent now, are you.”

“I’m sorry, Dean.” Cas’s sincere remorse makes Dean want to break things.

“Not as fucking sorry as I am.”

Shove it down, fucking bury it, because if you stop still for one second to think about this, it’s gonna take you down.

“We’ll make this right.”

“How, exactly? We don’t have any class rings, we don’t have the spell to open the cage up again – and even if we did, what’re we gonna do, just shove Sammy back down in there?”

Cas shakes his head.

“It’s not going to be like last time. All we need to do is get him out of Sam. We do that and the cage will pull him back in. He hasn’t properly escaped, not this time – the seals are still whole, will still be working to restrain him.”

“Then why hasn’t he been pulled back in already?”

“Having a vessel is like having a shield. The minute he’s separated from that, the cage will reclaim him.”

Dean snorts. “You make it sound pretty goddamn easy.”

“Of course it won’t be easy. Ideally we’d have the book of the damned, but, failing that, there must be ways.”

“Like what?” Dean starts, and then shakes his head. “No, we don’t have time for this. You can explain on the way, or whatever.”

Cas nods, takes Dean’s head in his hand and heals away his headache, and any lingering trace of concussion.

“Shouldn’t you be saving that juice for yourself?” Dean asks, tone entirely too sharp. He doesn’t know what’s wrong with him, why he can’t just say goddamn thanks like a normal person. He has to lash out.

But Cas knows him well enough to understand, anyway. The poor bastard is fluent in Dean Winchester’s bullshit, knows Dean is only doing it because he’s worried. Because his health isn’t worth as much to him as Cas’s, and he doesn’t get why everyone else doesn’t have their priorities straight.

“I’ll be fine, I wanted to make sure you were, too.” Cas finally takes his hands off Dean’s face, turns and makes his way to the car.

Dean is glad Cas’s back is turned, doesn’t want him to see how red his face is.

Cas has a way of saying things like that, so simple but so fucking devastating. The kind of things you say to someone you love. The kind of things that if they were said by anyone else, Dean would take as confirmation, that’d give him the confidence to just once and for all fucking kiss him.

But this is Cas, and it’s not that he doesn’t know what he’s saying it’s that he doesn’t know what it means to Dean when he does. Or maybe, maybe Dean’s just been pretending that’s the case for so long he doesn’t even know, anymore. The reason he hasn’t made a move on Cas is six parts he doesn’t think it’s requited and doesn’t want to drive Cas away, four parts he’s terrified it fucking is. Because let’s face it, the last thing Cas needs, right now or ever, is to be pulled into Dean’s fucked up orbit and spat back out a few months down the line, dead or wishing he was.

And speaking of Dean’s fucked up orbit, time to try and go rescue the one person most irrevocably tainted by it.

He should never have come back from purgatory. Shoulda let that be a clean break, left Sam to his dog and his almost wife and just stayed out of harms way, doing what he does best. Killing shit.

And okay, Benny wouldn’t have got out, but Benny ended up fucking back in there anyway – because of Dean. And Cas, well. Yeah, okay, actually – Cas would probably have been whipped out and under Naomi’s control, but he broke free – because of the tablet or something, Dean’s never been quite sure – but whatever it was, he could have done it again.

And maybe without Dean pushing him, he wouldn’t have tried to seal up heaven, lost his wings and become angel enemy number one.

If this, then that. It’s all fucking if’s and then’s.

Dean’s been catapulted around the past and future enough times (harhar) to know that it ain’t that straightforward. Doesn’t stop him fucking bellyaching though.

He runs out after Cas, slides into the passenger seat of his own goddamn car and doesn’t even bitch when Cas makes a grabby motion for the keys. He hands them across, like a gentleman.

 

*

 

The drive back is tense and mostly silent. Also, Cas drives like a fucking maniac. And not in the way that Dean drives like a maniac. Cas drives like he wants to die.

“Who taught you to drive?” Dean asks, holding onto the seat as Cas executes a sloppy fucking handbrake turn.

Cas throws the car into another unnecessarily sharp turn, grins that understated little grin of his, because fuck it, the worst things get, the more they need to ignore the world around them and turn things into fucking jokes. It’s called coping and fuck you and your healthy goddamn strategies come sit through, what, four fucking apocalypses. Dean has quite literally lost shitting count.

“You.” Cas eventually says, with a sideways glance.

_I didn’t teach you how to drive like_ this, Dean thinks. _I fucking worry enough about you without the added fear that you’re gonna torpedo yourself into oncoming traffic._

Dean doesn’t voice this though, because it’s too much like a sincere emotion for this time, for this fucking situation.

Cas seems to take the hint though, and he slows down. The closer they get to the bunker, the more he keeps glancing at Dean. Quick little glances, like he thinks Dean won’t notice.

Well he does, and it’s not fucking helping

Dean hits the radio on to fill up the silence, but every channel he lands on is some bullshit and entirely too prescient song. He perserveres until he hears the opening strains of Judas Priest’s Deal with the Devil and then he slams the radio off in frustration.

 Cas makes the final turn and the car crunches up the gravel approach before coasting to a stop. He makes no move to get out, rests his hand on Dean’s shoulder.

“Will you be o—”

Dean shrugs him off and steps out of the car. They don’t have time for this fucking around.

Time to confront the devil.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was the last edited chapter so from now on updates are gonna be a bit like this
> 
> No more stupid breaks though, It'll be regular, I promise.
> 
> Comments and kudos and reblogs are always appreciated ;P


	18. Chapter 18

“Make sure he doesn’t wake up.” Lucifer tells the demon.

“Can I kill him if he does?”

Lucifer clicks his fingers and the demon’s throat starts to constrict. She croaks her apology hastily, and Lucifer lets her go, teleports away.

The demon places a hand on Dean’s forehead, concentrates on keeping him unconscious. A boring job, but one given to her by Lucifer returned. There will be rewards.

Doesn’t make it any easier to avoid mulching Dean’s pretty little face, though.

 

*

 

Lucifer lands outside the bunker, slips in through the door.

_You know, the wards on this building are works of art. Nothing human may pass them, unless it’s considered an ally by those who live within the walls. Well, Sam and Dean think you’re their angel bff, so the wards think it’s fine to let you in._

_So why are they letting_ you _in?_

_I said the wards were a work of art. I didn’t say they were fool-proof. Can’t tell us apart. Maybe you should do a redesign when— oh, wait. You won’t get the chance._

_That joke is getting very tired._

_Not for me._

“Sam?” Lucifer calls out in Cas’s voice, knocks on the wall and waits for a reply.

_What’re you doing?_ Cas has to ask, even though he doesn’t want to – would rather float on by in blissful ignorance.

_Um. It’s no fun if I_ tell _you._

“Cas? Is that you?” Sam yells from somewhere deep within the bunker.

Lucifer follows his voice, finds him – predictably enough – in the library.

“Cas. It’s been a while, how are you?” Sam pulls him into a hug. Lucifer pretends to fudge it, unsure whether he should hug back or not. The way Cas would.

“I’m as well as can be.”

“Yeah? Well, that’s good, I guess. Is Dean with you?”

“No. He had an errand to run.”

“Ah, okay. So what’s up?”

“Oh, Sam, you have no idea.”

Lucifer snuffs Cas out, takes a step forwards.

 

*

 

Cas returns to consciousness in the warehouse outside Lebanon. A demon is looming over Dean, looking like she’s about to land a fatal blow. Lucifer lunges forwards, grabs her and wrestles her to the floor.

_What have you done, where are we?_

_We’re at the warehouse, Castiel. The demon escaped, knocked poor Dean out. We’re rescuing him._

_But the bunker – Sam?_

_We haven’t been to the bunker._

_No, I remember, Sam, and—_

_I was joking about you losing your mind before, but well. Maybe I need to ease off._

_No, we were at the bunker. You were talking about the wards._

_We haven’t been to the bunker since we had that little chat, where Dean confessed his deepest, darkest secrets to me._

_Don’t lie to me!_ Cas screams, but Lucifer pretends to pay him no heed, pretends he can’t feel the delicious creeping doubt. As if Castiel hasn’t got enough to deal with, without being persuaded that he’s losing his mind, too.

After all, it’s all he has left.

Dean’s eyes flicker open and Lucifer feels the relief course through Cas. It doesn’t last long, as he realises that Lucifer is making no real effort to fight the demon he’s wrestling with. He’s play acting, as he lets her flip him over and pin him to the floor.

_Save me, Dean. This big old nasty demon is just too strong._

And save him, Dean does. He launches himself forwards, stabs Ruby’s knife into the demon’s back. Lightning sparks and crackles, but Cas knows she isn’t dead. He can feel Lucifer shielding her, protecting her from the effects of the blade.

_Why—_

_A loyal servant deserves to be protected._ Lucifer says, as he wrenches the demon out of the dead girl’s body, drags her down into the ground and obliterates her entirely from existence.

_You don’t want Dean to know she’s dead?_

_Clever boy._

The look on Dean’s face when the demon doesn’t die is priceless. He’s like a bad actor auditioning for a part in the 0.2 seconds before the director throws him out on his ear – trying to showcase his entire emotional range in the hope that if he runs through it fast enough the flaws won’t be as obvious.

Rage-triumph-joy-confusion-horror-fear. And then, as Lucifer takes hold of the poor, loyal demon and wrenches her out of her meatsuit, that kind of dawning, sinking realisation.

Lucifer hides a smirk as Dean punches the ground. Humanity has so much unless overspill. Emotions that bubble up and make them do stupid, wasteful things. It’s not like that punch is going to do anything, really. Even if the demon wasn’t already dead, what was he trying to do – punch as hard as he could on the off chance it sent a shockwave down to hell and caught her?

_He’s just frustrated._ Cas interrupts.

_I know that._ Lucifer has to strain to resist rolling his eyes. _I’m just saying it’s a waste of effort._

“What the fuck was that?” Dean asks, like he’s taking the defeat as a personal judgement.

_May as well throw him a bone._

“Knight of hell.”

Did Lucifer says throw him a bone? He meant add another little frisson of panic to the overall emotional shitstorm.

Lucifer feels his black eye trying to heal, puts a stop to that and makes it a little more bloodshot – just to really emphasise it.

“You think it’s, y’know?” _Bless, he can’t even bear to say my name._

“No. Whoever did this didn’t quite succeed – that demon was stronger than average, but not as strong as Abaddon. Lucifer wouldn’t have failed.”

_I thought you were trying to scare him? Is your pride getting in the way? Can’t bear to be associated with a faulty model?_ Cas snarks, can’t even summon the strength immediately regret it.

Lucifer is getting to him, and he can’t help but swing between obstinate anger and despair. After all, what further cruelties could the devil possibly be driven to, here in this abandoned warehouse.

_Don’t think that will go unpunished._ Lucifer remarks, because of course, he can hear Cas’s thoughts. _Just because I can’t do it now, doesn’t mean I won’t do it later. I have a long memory, and there are lots of towns nearby._

_I’m sorry._

_Again, with some conviction?_

_I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to imply you were prideful. I know you do everything for a reason._

Lucifer might have an abundance of pride, but Castiel is rapidly discovering the brittle nature of his own. He’d give Lucifer his kidneys to stop him committing more atrocities than necessary, but, well. Lucifer already owns them.

_Nice grovelling, but I’m afraid it’s too late. There’s no point in me making threats if I won’t carry them through. You’ll stop taking me seriously._

Cas accepts defeat, curls back in on himself, tries to think of other things as he waits until this is over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SORRY CAS


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I finally got off my arse and updated the rating to reflect where the story will end up:~~~~~

Lucifer, of course, has other ideas. He tuts, wrests Cas’s attention back to the here and now.

_No checking out, now. I like that even less than I like the disrespectful back chat._

“We’re still alive, aren’t we?” Lucifer lets some strain into his voice, like he’s taken a beating and is doing what he can to persuade otherwise. Dean picks up on it instantly.

_Bless, he’s worried about you._

_Of course he is. I’ll be no use going after Sam if I’m half dead._

_Again with this, really?_

“I’ll be fine. We have more important things to deal with – we need to get to L— to Sam, before she warns him.”

Dean’s expression hardens, all concern evaporating, replaced with bitterness.

“Not so eager to believe he’s innocent now, are you.”

_Aw, he’s upset that he allowed you to persuade him, give him hope._

_You gave him hope not me. Anyway, he’s right to have it. Sam isn’t your vessel, is he?_

_No, it’s you. The one person he trusted, never suspected._

_I don’t have to defend myself to you._

_No, you’ll have to defend yourself to Dean. And I can’t wait to watch._

_I did this for a noble reason._

_You’ve done a lot of things for noble reasons. How’d the rest of them work out?_

_This will be different. Won’t it?_

_You’ll get what you want. I promise you that._

_And the price I’ll pay to get it?_

_That depends, what price do you think it’s fair to put on the continued existence of the universe, Castiel?_

Cas doesn’t have an answer for that. Or, at least, not a palatable one.

Lucifer hums in smug satisfaction, turns back to Dean. He pretends to comfort him, all the time pushing buttons he knows will only serve to further rile him up.

“We’ll make this right.” Lucifer says, with that patronising kindness that always sets Dean off. And it doesn’t disappoint.

“How, exactly? We don’t have any class rings, we don’t have the spell to open the cage up again – and even if we did, what’re we gonna do, just shove Sammy back down in there?”

_Is that your plan? Imprison Sam in the cage as revenge?_

_Hush now, the adults are talking._

Lucifer launches into his great spiel, about how the cage is still exerting influence on him, how the moment the barrier Sam’s body is providing is removed, boing, back to hell he gets snapped.

And because he thinks it’s Cas telling him, Dean believes it. Obviously he’s Dean so he covers his acceptance with a scoff and a flippant remark, but he doesn’t actually challenge the validity of it.

_Is it true?_ Cas asks, in an emotionless deadpan. Like he thinks that won’t give anything away.

Lucifer sneers. _Wouldn’t you like to know._

Eventually Dean seems to realise that they’ve only got a limited amount of time before the “demon” gets to Sam and warns him, and he stops asking stupid questions and starts to make haste.

_I thought we were going to be here forever. So much for a sense of emergency._

Cas stays silent, and Lucifer gives a mental shrug. Let him keep his counsel for now. Soon he’ll be getting very vocal. And Lucifer does love to hear him _scream._

Lucifer takes Dean’s head in his hands, stifling a laugh at the reactions he gets. Dean leans into it, closes his eyes, and Cas practically vibrates with a mix of longing and fear.

_Relax, I’m not going to break his neck._

_What are you going to do?_

_I’m going to make the pain go away._

_LUCIFER—_

Lucifer heals Dean’s injuries, and Cas relaxes immediately as he realised Lucifer’s words hadn’t been meant in a ‘sleep with the fishes’ way.

“Shouldn’t you be saving that juice for yourself?”

_Talk about ungrateful. Maybe I should teach him a lesson after all. He should show me some respect._

Cas recognises the words from another time, long ago. When he barely knew Dean. He’s not sure why Lucifer is parroting them now, can only tell that he finds something about the whole situation almost unbearably hilarious.

Cas isn’t sure he wants to find out what.

“I’ll be fine, I wanted to make sure you were, too.” Lucifer turns away, ending the conversation there. He walks off to the car without looking back, doesn’t need to see Dean’s reaction. He can practically feel the embarrassed heat radiating off his face.

_Stop it._

_Stop what? Stop making your boyfriend feel loved and valued? Stop him thinking someone appreciates him?_

_That’s not—_

_Because, I mean, someone has to do it, Cas, and let’s face it, it’s not going to be you. Is it?_

That shuts him up. Lucifer slips into the driver’s seat of the Impala, waits for Dean to pick his jaw up off the floor, stop angsting, and join them.

When he eventually does, Lucifer holds his hand out for the keys, suppresses a grin as Dean passes them over without complaint.

_He even trusts you with his car. It must be love._


	20. Chapter 20

It doesn’t take long to realise something is wrong. The bunker’s door has been wrenched off its hinges, lies buckled on the ground. Great, ugly knife marks have been gouged into it, some kind of sigil, at Dean’s best guess, but nothing he recognises.

“We’re too late, aren’t we?”

Cas grits his teeth, starts to pull his lying face, the one he always uses when he’s pretending things are okay. Dean’s fucking intimately familiar with that face by now. He’s usually the one causing it, insulting Cas, putting distance between them – kicking Cas out of his life entirely.

 “He might still be here.” Cas says, but it falls even flatter than his usual lies.

“And if he’s not?”

“He has to be. He still has his wings, if he isn’t here; we’ve got no way to track him.”

“Thanks, captain bad news.”

Cas shrugs, steps in front of Dean and crosses the threshold cautiously. Nothing blows up, or leaps out at him, and he beckons Dean inside. Dean follows obediently, mentally kicking himself for letting Cas go in first, put himself in fucking danger again.

The damage isn’t limited to the outside of the bunker. It looks like a knife wielding hurricane blew through – the map from the war room is embedded in the wall, more ugly scores carved through it, chunks of bannister are missing and all of a sudden Dean catches a whiff of fire.

They pick their way through the wreckage, following the trail of destruction to the library. Smoke billows through the door as Cas throws it open, enough that Dean coughs and chokes, blinded.

“Stay here.” Cas commands, and for once Dean doesn’t argue. Fat lot of good he’s going to be in a situation where he can neither see nor breathe.

Cas dives into the column and Dean covers his mouth with his shirt and tries to breathe through that as he listens for sounds of fighting.

He can’t hear anything except the crackling of flames, and then suddenly that stops too. The smoke vanishes, as Cas apparently extinguishes the flames and pulls some hitherto unused mojo out of his ass and banishes the fucking smog. Not that Dean’s complaining.

He steps into the room, surveys it grimly. The book are torched, and all the files too. All that knowledge, all that expertise. The job Abaddon began has been well and truly finished, and all Dean can think is how hard Sam must have begged Lucifer to stop this, not to taint his hands with—

“Dean.” Cas’s voice grounds him, and Dean shoves those thoughts away, down where they fucking belong.

“He did this.”

“Why would he bother? There’s nothing that can tell us about the devil in here, could help us fight him.”

“So what, you think the books set themselves on fire, Cas?”

“No. I think the Knight came here looking for Lucifer. It’d explain why the door was ripped off its hinges. Sam has a key, he wouldn’t need to force entry. ” Dean winces, but Cas doesn’t seem to notice, carries on “And none of the books here contain knowledge that could harm the devil, he wouldn’t be threatened by this, wouldn’t feel the need to destroy it.”

Dean snorts, Cas’s theory is nice, but it smells like bullshit. Still, he doesn’t argue further, because that’d mean he has to think about it more, and he’s doing his fucking level best not to go anywhere near that.

 

*

 

The trail of destruction ends in the garage. At first, Dean thinks his cars have been spared, and then he sees her.

The Impala isn’t where he left her, she’s been moved into the middle of the room, right under one of the bright neon lights. Like she’s being showcased, a classic car put on display by a proud owner.

Except there’s no collector on earth who’d want to showcase a car in this state. Her roof has been ripped off almost entirely, hanging on by a twisted metal strand. All four tyres have been brutally slashed and all the glass – windscreen, lights, mirrors – has been shattered, pieces scattered on the floor. Half of her front seat is missing, and the remaining bit is shredded, covered in oil and grease from what’s left of the engine, ripped out of its rightful place and dumped, leaking and oozing onto the leather. One side of the car is caved in in multiple places, like someone swung a tire iron, or an angelic fist, at it, but it’s the other that makes Dean lose control, finally.

Burned into the paint in Sam’s neat handwriting, reads:

_It won’t be easy, it won’t be quick – L_


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the lack of update yesterday. Long story short I had to go to the hospital, but everything is fine now and you'll get two chapters tonight.

Dean’s mood gets fouler and fouler as they get nearer the bunker – no thanks to Lucifer, who has stopped just putting songs Dean hates on the radio and moved onto ones that are horrifyingly situationally appropriate. Anything that mentions the devil, basically.

All this considered, Dean is practically generating his own static thunderstorm by the time they pull up in front of the bunker. Perfect, and not just because the unhappier Dean is, the happier Lucifer is. A stressed Dean is much more suggestible, easier to nudge and push in the direction he wants.

 

*

 

 _What have you done?_ Cas asks, with tired, mild horror. It’s getting harder to draw up the full emotion. His well of horror has been tapped almost dry. But of course, almost isn’t totally. He’s sure Lucifer does this deliberately.

_Nothing. Haven’t been here, remember? But I’m not your only enemy. Maybe it was Amara._

_If that’s true, if she’s hurt Sam because you were too busy playing—_

_You’ll what, Castiel?_ Lucifer asks, in his sweetest voice.

The cruel, patronising tone ignites something in Cas, some last reserve of anger that he’d been tamping down and fighting to keep under control.

_If you hurt Sam or Dean – either through action or inaction, I’ll tear out my grace and sever you from the host._

Lucifer laughs, a single staccato bark.

_You’re feeling awfully feisty today._

_I mean it, Lucifer. This has gone on long enough. Do what I brought you here for, or leave._

_Nice try._

_I’m not trying._

_No, you’re making empty threats._

_I’m not—_

_Please, little master tactician. I’ve scoured your memories. I know what you’re capable of, and I know how you work. If you really thought you were able to rip out your grace, you’d have threatened it well before now._

_Everyone has their limits, Lucifer. This is mine._

_Not the for-funsies slaughter of your brother and sister?_

_No._ Cas says, swallowing down the crippling, boiling guilt that comes with the word.

 _I’m in your_ **head**.Lucifer snarls, reaches for the vessel’s lungs and collapses them both.

His mood flips back from anger to glee just as rapidly, and he laughs as Cas flounders, able to feel the panicking, choking sensation but unable to make the body he inhabits do anything about it, not gasp or cough or try and suck in breath.

And true, neither of the two angels actually need lungs to survive, but Cas is knitted into this body in an abnormal fashion. It’s been more than a vessel to him for a long time and as it suffers now, because of Lucifer’s meddling, so does he.

 _I know when you’re lying to me._ Lucifer says, eventually, finally, as he heals their lungs back to normal. _Do not test me._

“We’re too late, aren’t we?”

Lucifer adopts Cas’s worst lying face. The one he always pulls on a second too slow, after the damage has already been done.

He’s rewarded by the tick in Dean’s jaw as he grits his teeth, tries to decide whether to call Cas out on his bullshit.

_Do you reckon he thinks you’re trying to be kind, or that you’re an idiot?_

There’s a pause, and Lucifer sighs.

_Are you sulking about the lungs? I put them back, didn’t I?_

_Yes, you did._ Cas agrees, slowly, reluctantly.

_So answer the question before I take something else._

_I don’t know, both, maybe,_

Lucifer snorts. _If I wasn’t in your head I would honestly think you were putting this on. He always thinks the best of you. Shame that’ll all go away when he finds out what you did._

 _Yes._ Cas replies, sounding a million miles away. _I imagine so._

Lucifer briefly considers torturing a proper reaction out of him, decides more fertile ground probably lies with Dean.

“He might still be here.”

Pretending to be a bad liar is actually a lot harder than being a good one. To be a good liar all you really need is conviction. To deliberately lie badly you need so much nuance, layers of good and bad. Can’t lay it on too thick, or too thin.

 _I thought you said Dean would believe anything I said?_ Cas asks in a tired tone that suggests he doesn’t care about the answer, that he just felt the need to say something.

_He’s madly in love with you, not deaf. Even he can tell the difference between the truth and you trying to comfort him._

_Oh._ Castiel doesn’t respond to the jab. And, now that Lucifer thinks about it, he hasn’t tried to argue the last few times Dean was referred to as his boyfriend. That’s... interesting. Maybe he’s just tired of arguing about it. Maybe he’s starting to believe Lucifer.

Very interesting. Not that he’s going to admit that to the mongrel riding shotgun.

_If you’re not going to be either helpful or entertaining, Castiel, can I suggest that you be silent?_

_As you wish._

Cas sounds like he’s given up, but Lucifer doesn’t trust it. It’s too, not convenient, exactly, closer to too easy. Yes, there are times that Castiel, renegade angel of the lord, has given up in the face of insurmountable odds and claimed that he plans to lie down and wait for death. They are, however, vastly outnumbered by the times when he’s faced worse odds and clawed his way out of the situation by vicious cunning and strength of will.

Lucifer is going to have to keep an eye on him, especially now, just as things are about to get good.

“He has to be. He still has his wings, if he isn’t here, we’ve got no way to track him.”

That earns Lucifer a scowl from Dean, and an insult.

“Thanks, captain bad news.”

_What does he want? I try and reassure him, he snaps at me. I try and be honest with him, he snaps at me. It’s almost like he just wants to be angry._

Lucifer fake pouts, slips into the bunker in front of Dean. He makes a big pantomime show of checking for danger, earning a frown from Dean. Dean doesn’t like it when people put their bodies on the line for him, despite his borderline compulsion to do it for others.

Which, of course, is why Lucifer does it now.

_Whew. This place is a mess._

_You’d know._ Cas says, mildly, taking in the wreckage of the place he calls home and, as far as Lucifer can tell, not even feeling a twinge of anger, remorse, or even despair.

Bull. Shit.

_Are you hiding your emotions from me, Castiel? Because I seem to remember we had a discussion about that._

_I’m tired, Lucifer, what do you want from me?_

_I want a reaction._

_Just let me rest, please._

Just for that, Lucifer sets the library on fire with a twitch of his fingers.

_Oops, there goes all that knowledge. Sam will be devastated._

_I take it he’s not in the library._

_You don’t seem very worried._

Cas does the closest someone without a physical body can get to a shrug.

_You did this—_

_I told you, we haven’t been here._

_Now who’s lying? You did this, and I know you wouldn’t hurt Sam._

_Clever boy. I would hurt his brother, though. And I’d enjoy it too._

_Yes._ Cas agrees, and there’s a calm placidity to his tone that Lucifer doesn’t trust an inch. _I imagine you would._


	22. Chapter 22

They make their way through the wreckage, Lucifer pausing every now and then to pretend he gives a shit about some broken piece of sentimental shit. Eventually they come to the library.

“Stay here.” Lucifer instructs Dean, like he expects him to dive face first into a roaring fire.

_Hey, Cas. How is Dean with flames nowadays? Still wet his nappy at the smell of smoke? Still scream his mommy’s name at night?_

Cas just sighs, which isn’t the reaction Lucifer wanted. He dicks around in the flames for a little bit, throws a few of the rarer books into the pyre to make sure they’re thoroughly ruined and knocks over a lamp or two. Y’know, for funsies.

Eventually he douses the blaze and beckons Dean inside. He takes delight in Dean’s grim expression, the way his hands are balled into fists so tight his knuckles are white.

_Oops. Wonder what he’s thinking about._

_You know exactly what he’s thinking about._

Lucifer snickers. _I do, but I don’t have time to enjoy it. I have_ plans.

“Dean.”

_Look how quickly he snapped out of that spiral, just from hearing you call his name. Good job you’re not planning on using this power over him for evil._

_Is this where you laugh and say it’s a shame that you are?_

_Am I getting predictable? Hmm. That won’t do at all._

“He did this.”

_And they call Sam the smart one._

“So what, you think the books set themselves on fire, Cas?”

_Ooh, look. Someone’s tetchy._

_You’re systematically destroying his life. I think he has a right to be._

That’s more like what Lucifer expects to hear from Cas, but there’s none of the usual bite to it. He doesn’t snap it out, he just states it, deadpan and matter of fact. For the first time, Lucifer wonders if maybe this isn’t an act. Maybe he has actually gone too far, too quickly. He doesn’t want Cas totally cowed, didn’t even _really_ mean to discipline him that time, he just snapped in anger – you try spending the best part of an eternity trapped in a box, see how it messes with your temperament.

Well, if he’s broken Castiel, he’s broken him. Nothing to be done about that now.

Lucifer turns his attention back to Dean, spins him some waffle about it being the fake Knight of Hell who destroyed the bunker – mostly just to see if Dean buys it. Dean doesn’t commit one way or another, just snorts and adopts that glazed expression that means he’s trying very hard not to think about things.

Tough shit, Dean-o

 

*

 

Lucifer leads Dean on a rambling route to the garage, all but mentally rubbing his hands together with glee.

 _Whatever you’re so excited about – wait, no. I’d rather not._ Cas hastily corrects himself.

_Not going to get mad at me and beg me to stop?_

_What’s the point?_

_Aw, defeat isn’t a good colour on you. Kinda boring, actually._

_Do you want me to pretend I care?_

_I want you to stop pretending you_ don’t.

 _It isn’t a pretence, Lucifer. What more do you want from me? I am_ tired _and I just want you to stop toying with my friends and do what you came here for._ Cas snaps, and immediately regrets it as he feels satisfaction at the edge of Lucfer’s thoughts, oil slick and cloying.

_See, you’re not completely spent._

_So it would seem._

_I’ll tell you what, Cas. Let’s make this a bit more interesting._

_Do we have to?_

_Oh, you’ll like this. A little something to get you engaged. I get it, being powerless can be so demoralising._

_Is this a roundabout way of telling me you’re going to give me back my body?_

Lucifer scoffs. _Nice try. No, but I am going to give you a veto._

_A what?_

_Don’t play coy. You know what a veto is. You say one word, and whatever I am doing, I’ll stop. And not just that, I’ll never do that particular thing, ever again._

_Why?_

_Are we checking the teeth of our gift horses’ teeth, Castiel?_

_No. I’ll take it._

_Excellent. But, remember. You only get one. Use it wisely._

_I veto—_

_You cannot veto something that hasn’t happened yet, or that has already happened. Don’t be cheeky._

Cas knows it’s a trick, a trap. He also knows that Lucifer will honour his word and that he has no choice but to take it and sit passively through every evil small and large, knowing he could stop it, knowing that he won’t.

Knowing that’s he’s saving it for when Lucifer tries to kill Dean.

And he will, because the entire point of everything he’s done so far it to punish Castiel for his transgressions. He wouldn’t balk at the last step.

He wouldn’t be merciful.


	23. Chapter 23

Dean steps into the garage, and, behind his back, Lucifer smiles. He can tell the exact moment Dean spots the Impala, registers what’s been done to her.

Dean’s body goes still, barely even breathing as he takes in the wreckage. His brother, his home his car. All gone in one day.

And then he spots the words carved into her metal sides.

_It won’t be easy, it won’t be quick – L_

A perfect recreation of Sam’s handwriting, unmistakably so. Lucifer is an excellent impersonator, and he knows Sam’s hands. They were built for him, and he wore them with careful reverence.

Until he got an upgrade, of course. And these hands he doesn’t treat quite as well. The difference between a custom order and something you nicked off the street. Sure, your stolen property might have more value, but you’ll never love it as much as something that was built with you perfectly in mind.

_Is that how you think of me?_ Cas asks, in his tired, miserable tone.

Before Lucifer can give him an answer, Dean distracts them by howling some violent expletive and launching himself in the direction of the Impala. What he’s planning on doing, Lucifer doesn’t quite know. Wreck the car some more maybe.

Violence is always the answer, isn’t it, Dean? When everything is spiralling out of control and all you have left is your fists and your teeth.

_He’d have made a good demon, an excellent one. All that helplessness and all that rage turned inwards – wouldn’t take long to turn it all back, out against the world._

_He was already a demon, and all he did was sing karaoke and sleep with everyone he met._

_Did that make you jealous?_

_No._

_Hmph. Anyway, he’d need guidance, like all children. But when he was finished. Ah, he might even surpass Cain._

_Cain was a pacifist and a beekeeper until very recently._

_And then he met Dean Winchester and he turned into a murderer again._

Cas doesn’t have a response for that, keeps silent as Lucifer intercepts Dean, restrains him from behind.

_He’s a wriggler. How’s that feel, Castiel? Having Dean Winchester grinding against your crotch._

_He’s not grinding. He’s trying to escape._

_It’s all friction. Do you think he’d notice if we popped a boner?_

_Lucifer, please._

_Please, what?_

Cas sighs, lapses into silence. He forces himself to hold his tongue as Lucifer whispers platitudes in Dean’s ear under the guise of calming him. From anyone else they’d sound trite, awkward, but Lucifer has a way of making even the most banal of clichés sound remarkable.

Words that in Cas’s own mouth would sound clumsy and hollow, sing when Lucifer voices them. And that hurts, especially when it seems that they’re going some way to calming Dean down. Eventually his immediate fury subsides, and Lucifer lets him go. But not without a parting gift, a small surge of adrenaline.

_Why—_

Cas gets as far as to ask, before Dean surges forwards and crushes their mouths together in a frenzied kiss.

_You owe me $5_ Lucifer deadpans, as suddenly Dean’s higher functions regain control of his body and he reels back looking guilty and shocked, and a little bit scared.

The fear doesn’t recede as Lucifer keeps his face carefully blank, implacable.

_No comment?_ Lucifer asks Castiel. He expected one, or if not one in words then at least a shout or something.

Instead he’s frozen – horror and confusion and lust and guilty pleasure all warring for control. Lucifer isn’t too worried, eventually one will triumph – he’s expecting horror – and Cas will come back to them, screaming and railing and begging for this to stop.

But will he veto it?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :o


	24. Chapter 24

Dean screams, lunges forward. He doesn’t know what he’s going to do, rip and tear and destroy a little more maybe, but Cas intervenes. Strong arms grab him from behind, restrain him. He struggles furiously, too wound up to be calmed by Cas’s touch. That bastard has Sam, that bastard has Sam and he’s fucking mocking them, methodically destroying the things they all love the most. Dean’s car, Sam’s library.  Cas’s...what? If he was less furious that’d be a sobering thought, the realisation that Lucifer didn’t destroy anything of Cas’s, probably because there’s nothing _of_ Cas’s in the bunker. Nothing he loves, anyway.

But right now there’s no room for self-loathing in Dean, it’s all rage. He tries to fight Cas’s grip, but Cas has angelic strength and unlimited patience, and they both know he’s not going to be the first one to crack.

Dean feels Cas’s breath on his ear, tries to ignore him as he whispers, soft, gentle encouragements.

“This isn’t the end. Sam beat the devil once, he can do it again. I’m here, Dean. We’ll find him, we’ll fix this.”

Maybe they help, maybe they don’t. Eventually Dean tires himself out, stops struggling. Cas lets him go immediately, pulls him around so that they’re facing. He doesn’t see – or maybe he ignores – the tear tracks down Dean’s cheeks, puts a hand on his shoulder.

And Dean can’t bear it any longer. He needs one thing, fucking something.

He lunges forwards, see’s Cas’s eyes widen as though he expects to be punched, the little half flinch.

And Dean kisses him, terrified, hungry, not thinking at all. And then his brain comes back into line and he flinches away, panicked and guilty, searching Cas’s blank face for any sign of a reaction and finding none.

“Shit, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it, I. FUCK!”

A flicker crosses Cas’s face then, and he settles on something that if Dean didn’t know better, he’d call stoic resignation.

“I can do this, if that’s what you need right now, Dean. If you need to lose yourself in someone.”

And now the look makes sense, and Dean fucking crumbles inside. He’s fucked Cas up so badly, if he’s offering this for the reason Dean thinks he is.

“No, not like—”

“But,” and now Cas’s tone gets bitter, and Dean just wants to stop him before he says it, that he’s willing to fuck Dean, but it won’t mean anything, it’ll just be to distract him from everything, calm him down. “You should probably know that I’ll be pretending it’s because you care about me. If that makes you uncomfortable, I’d suggest you pursue other options.”

This is how the universe hands out good things to Dean Winchester. At a price. After the worst possible cost, so that even things he’s fantasised about for years taste like a mouthful of fucking sulphur.

“You don’t mean that.” Dean says, still aware that he’s standing too close to Cas, that he needs to step back. It’s an effort keeping his focus on Cas’s eyes. He keeps flicking down to his lips, but he can’t, he can’t do this to Cas.

Cas just shrugs, smiles that bitter little smile that means he’s about to lie to Dean and he’s going to take no pleasure in doing it.

“You’re right, I was just offering you comfort. I thought it’d be more palatable to you if you thought I wanted it. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

Dean wishes his heart would make good on its threats and stop. Each beat feels like a knife wound. 

“Don’t lie to me, Cas. Please.”

Cas snorts. “Make up your mind, Dean. Which do you want? The answer that lets us put all this behind us and go and save Sam, or the answer that ends with us parting ways.”

Dean grabs Cas by the lapels, pulls him into another kiss. Cas doesn’t respond, frozen still, and Dean realises he hasn’t explained himself, that Cas must still think this is just about physical release. Dean pulls back, looks Cas dead in the eye and, haltingly, stumblingly, confesses to him.

“I can’t do this alone, Cas. I need you. I fucking want you, I lo—” He falters on the word, and Cas smiles at him, the bitterness replaced by something softer, sadder.

“You don’t have to say it.”

“I fucking love you, and you should hate me for it.” He doesn’t say _because I’m poison,_ but it hangs in the air around them. A nebulous cloud of self-doubt and hatred, masquerading as an explanation.

“I could never hate you for that.” Cas says, like it’s nothing, no big fucking deal. Like someone managing to cling on to Dean through all the bullshit isn’t a goddamn miracle.

Dean’s lungs finally resume proper function, start pulling in air.

“If I kiss you again, will you kiss me back this time?” He asks, not even bothering to disguise the desperation in his tone.

This time, Cas kisses him.


	25. Chapter 25

“Shit, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it, I. FUCK!” The silence has stretched on too long for Dean, clearly, and now he’s preparing to go into damage control mode.

Lucifer plays with Cas’s micro expressions, lets disappointment and anger have their ever so brief turn before he settles on good old _stoic, resigned bastard_.

“I can do this, if that’s what you need right now, Dean. If you need to lose yourself in someone.”

Lucifer says it faux-casually, delights in the way it finally rouses Cas to make a noise – a strange, broken little exhale.

Dean looks crestfallen, as well he should. Interestingly, though, he doesn’t even seem to be trying to hide it.

“No, not like—”

“But,” Lucifer doesn’t need to steal from Cas to summon up bitterness here. He lets his own well up, that rich, jagged resentment from a millennia locked up and alone, caged and derided by one he loved. Maybe that’s a bit thick for the situation, but he knows it’ll resonate with Dean. “You should probably know that I’ll be pretending it’s because you care about me. If that makes you uncomfortable, I’d suggest you pursue other options.”

Lucifer barely manages to choke the words out past the emotions screaming from Cas, stumbles over them. He thought his own bitterness was insurmountable, earned over an eternity. It pales beside what Cas is throwing out now. A sick, disgusted, queasy hatred, as Lucifer confesses Cas’s love to Dean and makes him watch.

_Y-you—_ Cas can’t even stutter out a coherent thought, a melee of anger and misery and regret all tangling up together. Of all the ways he might have done this, he’d never choose this one. He’d never use his confession as a weapon, a stick to beat Dean with.

But of course, it isn’t just that. It’s the fact that Lucifer took this from him, and no matter what happens now, it’s ruined forever.  Either Cas loses Dean, or he keeps him, and maybe that would be worse. Dean could admit he feels the same way, they could expel Lucifer, but this moment would still be his. He’d still be the reason, the catalyst. He’d still be hanging over their lives for the rest of forever.

_Don’t be so melodramatic. Really, I’m doing you a favour. You were never going to pull your finger out of your ass otherwise._

“You don’t mean that.” Dean says, eyes unfocused, hand shaking. Here’s a man moments and an eternity away from having his wishes granted, watch him tremble.

There are a lot of things Lucifer could say here to get the desired result. Of course, being Lucifer, he goes for the one that’ll hurt the most, wound Dean while still being transparent enough not to stick.

Sometimes you can see right through a lie designed to hurt you, and yet it still does the job.

“Don’t lie to me, Cas. Please.”

_He sounds so desperate._ Lucifer goads Cas, doesn’t receive a reply. Which is disappointing, but can be tolerated, for now. 

“Make up your mind, Dean. Which do you want? The answer that lets us put all this behind us and go and save Sam, or the answer that ends with us parting ways.”

Dean takes the bait, initiates another kiss. Now Cas makes a noise, another one of his little half groans. Something, but not quite enough. Lucifer needs more from them both, Dean especially. He stays blank, impassive.

He wants to hear Dean _say_ it.

Well, actually, he wants Cas to hear Dean say it. He wants Cas to be brought to his knees by it, to look out at those earnest green eyes, and hate himself more than Lucifer hates him.

“I can’t do this alone, Cas. I need you. I fucking want you, I lo—”

Dean stumbles, and Lucifer ignores Cas’s low moan, instead vocalises the kind of leading sympathy that will goad Dean into saying what he wants so badly to say.

“I fucking love you, and you should hate me for it.”

_No. Not now, please, don’t. No._ Cas mutters, increasingly desperate.

_Yes._ Lucifer says, radiating smug, sly satisfaction. _You took my freedom, so I’m taking this from you._

He leans forward, kisses Dean will all the pent up love and tenderness he can skim off Cas’s surface. He doesn’t want to go too deep, has no desire to drown himself in heartsick pining and soppy doe eyes.

_You took my freedom, and in return, I am laying claim to all of the things that you love. You can fight me, you can expel me, you can even kill me and get your apple pie life. It won’t matter, you won’t be able to enjoy one single moment of it. I’ll always be there. It’ll always be my hand that orchestrated any fragment of happiness you try to claw back for yourself, my shadow falling over the rest of your life. You’ll always know that the first time Dean’s lips touched yours, belongs to me.  And I’m not stopping there. I’m going to take every first you’ll ever have with Dean, and I am going to make them mine._  

_This_ Lucifer says, _is the price._


	26. Chapter 26

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> See endnotes for chapter warnings

Cas kisses gently, tenderly. Like Dean is something precious and easily broken. And at any other time, Dean would revel in that, want to soak it up and drown in it. Right now, though, is not the time for delicate and tender. Now is desperation, years of pent up frustration and longing clawing to the surface and demanding that Cas touches every inch of Dean’s flesh, sinks his nails and teeth into his skin, utterly consumes him.

Dean surges forward, deepens the kiss, and Cas, fucking brilliant Cas gets the idea immediately. He responds in kind, hands dropping to Dean’s waist to push up under his shirt. He groans as he makes contact with Dean’s bare skin, and Dean realises that he’s probably every bit as desperate for this as he is. Everything is about to go to shit, probably already has, but they’ve got this one, desperate reprieve.

Because when this is done, they’re going after two big fucking evils, and who knows how many of team free will is gonna come back from it hale.

Cas breaks the kiss, pulls back, panting. He looks like he’s physically straining with the effort of holding himself back, but he manages it long enough to ask, “bed?”

Dean nods, turns and practically runs to his bedroom. Cas follows behind, keeps trying to slow him down and kiss him against any available surface, but Dean pushes him back and he takes the hint. If they stop, they aren’t going to start moving again, and not to be a sappy romantic ass about this, but Dean doesn’t want their first time to involve being nailed against a wall.

They make it to Dean’s room, and he wastes no time stripping Cas off. The trench coat gets flung against a wall, followed just as quickly by the jacket and shirt. Dean pulls Cas in for another bruising kiss as he undoes his belt and slacks, moves his attention to Cas’s neck and jawline as he helps him out of his boxers too.

He drops to his knees, is surprised when Cas catches his arm and pulls him back up.

“I, sorry, I—”

He doesn’t know what he did wrong, but clearly it was something. There’s a short stab of apprehension, but Cas interrupts before it can spiral into something more significant.

“You’re still wearing all your clothes.” He growls out, voice rough with arousal.

Dean drops his head to Cas’s shoulder. “You nearly gave me a fucking heart attack, you ass.” He says, but with no real heat.

Cas doesn’t remove Dean’s clothes delicately, he fucking tears them off. Grabs hold of the front of Dean’s shirt and rips it off him, drops it to the ground. The tee underneath it only escapes the same treatment because Dean shrugs it off hastily. Literally ripping his clothes off is hot, don’t get him wrong he fucking loves it, but this is the last shirt he has without bloodstains.

Cas grabs the waistband of Dean’s jeans, and Dean can see they’re about to go the same direction as his shirt, bids them a fond farewell and then groans as Cas bites at his bottom lip with the perfect amount of pressure. Dean drags his fingers up Cas’s side, revels in the trembles his touch inspires and tries, once again, to sink to his knees.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for T rated noncon and dubcon


	27. Chapter 27

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See endnotes for warnings for this chapter

For once Lucifer finds Cas’s head full of pop culture junk useful, instead of a cluttered nightmare. He trawls it for tenderness, soft kisses and delicate touches of the kind that neither he nor Cas have much experience with.

He’s surprised, then, when Dean immediately moves to hasten things.

_I always took him for the soft and tender type, but look, he’s so desperate to touch you he can barely hold himself back. Isn’t that pathetic._

_Please, Lucifer._ Cas sounds so stoic, pointlessly so. Whatever blank and implacable wall he’d thrown up around himself earlier is gone. Lucifer is so closely knitted into him that he can feel every little tremble and tick. Can feel exactly how much this hurts.

This is killing Cas, and the best thing is, he knows it’s only going to get worse.

Lucifer meets Dean’s passion with his own, skimming off the desperate arousal Cas can’t help but feel mixed in with horror and shame like a good little Catholic masturbating for the first time.

Lucifer is surprised to find that the experience isn’t as distasteful as he thought it would be. He expected to take no joy from the physical sensations themselves, thought his only pleasure would be in the building despair he wrung from Cas.  This, though, this is intriguing – and he decides to make sure Cas knows it, irritate the wound a little more.

_I’m enjoying this more than I thought. I thought it’d feel debasing, dirty and human, but it just feels_ good. _Quite the skilled tongue your little hunter has. I bet he’s good at putting it to other uses, too. Maybe I’ll keep him, when all this is over. He can be our concubine; I can come back here and feed him your cock whenever I get bored._

_Don’t—_

_Don’t fuck him, or don’t keep him?_

_Just leave him alone. Torture me instead._

_This is torturing you. And who said it’d be torture for him? Bit presumptuous._

Cas makes a noise, a long, rattling breathy sigh. And then he takes a deep breath, and another – except, he doesn’t. Lucifer marvels as Cas plays out echoes of the physical motions humans use to psyche themselves up. He doesn’t even have a body to take deep breaths with, but he makes an approximation, remembers what it feels like to inhale through his own lungs, and fixes on it, counts the amount of fake breaths in an attempt to not snap – lose his temper, or his mind.

For all Lucifer hates him, he can’t deny that Castiel _fascinates_ him.

“Bed?” Lucifer asks Dean, fake panting, like this is all too much, like just the mere touch of Dean’s lips is enough to take his breath away.

Dean nods frantically, tries to rush them back to his room. Lucifer plays at not letting him, pins him against surfaces and teases him just enough to keep jarring at the wound he’s dug in Castiel, not enough to persuade Dean to actually stop and fuck him in the corridor.

Lucifer wants this to be as tender as Dean will let it be. He wants heartfelt affection tinged with desperation. The sense that this is a culmination of years of frantic longing, crescendoing in a beautiful, passionate, loving climax. Because the better it is for Dean, the more perfect a moment it is for him, the worse it is for Cas.

If, somehow, Cas somehow manages to escape his hold, Lucifer wants it so that he can never be gentle with Dean again, without both of them remembering that Lucifer was gentle with him first. He wants to own their tender touches, and leave violence the only thing untainted between them.

 

*

 

Dean strips Lucifer off and kisses him as Cas wails quietly. He’d been hoping, begging that this wouldn’t go further, that Dean would insist it could wait, that they start looking for Sam. But, of course, Lucifer laid careful groundwork – the hints about wings and flight, the lack of trail.

And Dean needs this, this comfort. That’s the only thing that makes it bearable for Cas, that gives him the strength to keep holding on to the veto that he knows he has to save.

Dean thinks this is okay, wants it even. As irretrievably, heartbreakingly tainted as this is for Cas, this will be a good memory for Dean, even if probably only temporarily.

And that thought leads to other, darker, more treacherous waters as Cas tries not to ponder the ethics of making sure Dean never finds out the truth behind all this. Because what he’d do and what Dean would want him to do are two very different things, and the only thing that would make him glad to betray Dean like that, would be a chance at keeping Dean happy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for T rated noncon and dubcon.


	28. Chapter 28

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See endnotes for warnings for this chapter
> 
> (Also check out the picture I hastily knocked together and put on chapter one ;DD)

Cas lets Dean sink to his knees this time, and Dean finally gets a good look at his cock. And maybe he’s a bit biased, but it’s fucking perfect. Thick and fat and gorgeous looking, precome beading at the head. Dean nuzzles at Cas’s crotch, can’t resist a little tease before he licks along the shaft and swallows down as much of it as he can fit in his mouth. Cas groans, fists his hands in Dean’s hair and pulls at it just the way Dean likes it. He fucks into Dean’s mouth in staccato bursts, and Dean lets him carry on just long enough for Cas to get really worked up, and then pulls off.

“Fuck me?” He gasps into the dark hairs of Cas’s crotch, suddenly unable to make eye-contact.

Cas doesn’t respond with words, just a desperate, drawn out groan that Dean interprets as full and enthusiastic consent. He stands, drags a dazed looking Cas over to the bed and pushes him onto it. Cas grabs him, pulls him down on top and starts tonguing at one of Dean’s nipples. He bites down and then immediately licks over the mark as Dean groans. Dean nearly gives up and just lets him have at it, but the lube is in his bedside cupboard, and he can’t reach it from here.

“Cas, lemme go.”

Cas makes a disgruntled noise, but he does as told, hungry eyes roving over Dean’s body, settling on his ass as he bends down, maybe sticks it out a little more than he would usually.

Dean chucks the lube at Cas, who catches it without even looking, attention now fixed on Dean’s cock as he comes back over to the bed, seats himself in Cas’s lap. He ruts against Cas’s crotch, a little tease, and reminder of what’s to come. It spurs Cas to movement and he squirts lube onto his fingers, allows Dean to guide his hand back towards his hole and push one finger in, start stretching.

Dean grunts at the slight burn, adjusts his angle a little to allow Cas easier access, and bites at his collarbones, determined to leave some marks. Cas starts to works him open, not touching his prostate once, and Dean’s nearly gagging now, desperate for stimulation.

“Please.” He gasps, as Cas bites down on his shoulder, hard enough that he’s going to leave a mark. Cas rubs his cheek, scratchy with new stubble, over the bite-mark, pulls his fingers out and then pushes Dean down onto the bed. Dean moans again, closes his eyes and waits for Cas to carry on prepping him. He could probably take a cock right now, but it wouldn’t be comfortable, not unless it was the size of a fucking pencil.

It doesn’t come, instead he finds himself flipped onto his front. He ruts into the bedsheet, desperate for some friction on his cock, but Cas pulls him up by his hips, so his ass is sticking in the air. He grunts into the pillow, half complaint, half anticipation. He doesn’t think he’s quite prepped enough, but he can’t quite bring himself to care. He trusts Cas, knows he wouldn’t do anything to hurt him – and he did rebuild this body once. He’s got to know it’s limits. If Cas thinks he’s ready, maybe he’s right.

He waits for that first pleasurable burn, as Cas slowly pushes his cock in and waits for Dean to adjust. Instead he feels Cas grab his ass with both hands, squeezing and kneading with deft fingers. Which is nice, really fucking nice, but it’s still not friction or pressure, and Dean’s getting desperate now. Enough teasing, enough playing.

“Please.” He groans. “Please, Cas.”

His begging is rewarded with a sloppy tongue and the brush of stubble against his ass as Cas leans forward, licks over his rim, teasing and gentle at first, and then getting firmer and more desperate until Cas finally, fucking finally, points his tongue and pushes it inside. Dean groans with almost relief, rolls his hips back, trying to force Cas’s tongue in deeper, chasing barely there sparks of pleasure.

He hears the sound of the lube being uncapped again, and then a finger works it’s way in alongside Cas’s tongue, carries on stretching him out. Dean nearly cries with relief at the added pressure, grunts into the bedsheet beneath him.

Cas stops fucking around, finally, works Dean open with fingers and tongue, until there’s spit and lube dribbling down the backs of Dean’s legs. Dean can hear him gasping, his breathing getting faster, and figures Cas has probably worked himself into a state of desperation similar to his own. Good, because at this rate Dean’s gonna pop the minute something touches his prostate, and it’d be embarrassing if Cas had to finish himself off.

After what feels like a goddamn eternity, Cas pulls off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for E rated non con and dubcon. 
> 
> If you want more info:
> 
> Although the sex in this chapter is written as consensual, that's because a) you can only see one side and b) Dean doesn't know who he's fucking. Poor Dean :(


	29. Chapter 29

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See end of the chapter for warnings

Dean drops to his knees and Lucifer decides to scare him, catches him as he goes and basks in the panic on his face.

“I, sorry, I—”

“You’re still wearing all your clothes.”

Lucifer doesn’t give the fear time to ferment, just in case Dean should suddenly get cold feet. He has a lot of superstitions regarding his wants, and if he gets a chance to overthink this he’s likely to decide that there’ll be a price for it that he can’t match – that this will come back to hurt him and Cas in some unfathomably connected way.

Bored of foreplay, Lucifer rips Dean’s clothes off him, enjoying the little animal noise of lust that it pulls out of Dean for the matching spark it kindles in Cas.

Cas, who has started humming some strange little tune that Lucifer suspects he’s made up. Something to focus on, to try and stem the tide of lust and self-loathing. It’s not working particularly well, if the desires pouring from him and into Lucifer are any indication, but, well, he can’t be blamed for trying.

Dean attempts to sink to his knees again, and this time Lucifer lets him, notes that Cas’s noises are getting more frantic, faster and faster until it stops with a choked off sigh as Dean Winchester starts to suck the devil’s cock.

_Stop it stop it stop it stop it stop it stop it STOP!_ Cas howls, frantic.

_Is that a veto?_ Lucifer asks, as he fists his hands in Dean’s hair and gives it a sharp tug.

Cas groans, a long wordless noise stemming a little from physical pleasure but mostly from heartbreak.

_Well?_ Lucifer asks again, unsteadily. He’s in the throes of bliss. The mixture of sensation – the physical pleasure of Dean’s tongue, Cas’s twinned agony and ecstasy. If he could take this moment and stretch it out for a millennia he would, he’d live the rest of eternity in it, drape himself in it and never be torn asunder.

_N-no._ Cas stutters, and Lucifer can feel the horror sloughing off him in great waves.

_Enjoying this t- too much are you?_ Lucifer twists the knife, because why not, because it’s delicious.

_I can’t..._ Cas manages, falls silent, too destroyed even to hum now. If he had a body he’d be curled into a ball on the floor, writhing, crying. As is, he’s trapped in hideous bliss.

“Fuck me?” Dean gasps into Lucifer’s crotch, suddenly too coy to look up.

Like Lucifer is going to say no to that. He makes the appropriate noise, allows Dean to drag him to the bed and push him down.

_He thinks he’s in charge._ Lucifer snorts, receives only a low, distressed whine from Cas.

Lucifer pulls Dean down on top of him, bites him hard enough to leave a mark – a punishment for impudence that he knows Dean will interpret as a sexual act meant for his pleasure.

“Cas, lemme go.”

Reluctantly Lucifer lets Dean go and get the lube, uses the time to steel himself. He needs to concentrate, not give himself over to hedonism, no matter how tempting. This isn’t about his own pleasure, although that is proving to be an added bonus. This is about making things as bad for Castiel as is inhumanly possible. Which means dragging it out, preparing Dean in the least satisfying way possible, using Cas’s intimate knowledge of the body he’d rebuilt and healed several times over to make sure that Dean’s prostate never gets touched.

_Nothing to say, Castiel?_

_Just don’t hurt him, please._ Cas manages between sobs, wild, desperate.

Lucifer doesn’t dignify it with a response.

“Please.”

Dean begs, and Lucifer considers granting his request, resists. He wants this to be sublime, painless and tender. Fucking Dean now when he isn’t quite ready – although greatly satisfying to Lucifer – would give this coupling a bitter edge.

It’ll hurt the most if it’s perfect.  And besides, he wants this to last as long as possible – both for his and Cas’s sake.

Lucifer flips Dean onto his hands and knees, smiles as he watches Dean brace himself to be penetrated.

_He’s so desperate for your cock he’s going to let you fuck him bloody._

Cas just groans again, a fresh spike of pain crescendoing and then settling back to the constant, fierce ache. Lucifer wonders idly how long he’d have to keep this up to drain Cas dry, make him numb to it all.

A long time, he imagines. Longer than human stamina, maybe even longer than the devil’s patience.

_This is the first time I’ve kissed a human’s ass._ Lucifer says as he eats Dean out with Cas’s long tongue – almost like it was made for this exact purpose. _Usually it’s the other way around, and less literal._

Nothing from Cas. He’s caught back in his pleasure/pain vortex as he hears Dean’s ecstatic groans, trying desperately to ignore them, tamp down the lust they’re stoking up and up. Lust that just fuels Lucifer even further, makes it harder for him to remember the point to this. Makes him just want to consume Dean in any way he can, fuck the plan, fuck it all – he just needs to shove his cock inside Dean, now, quick and brutal and so fucking satisfying.

No. He can’t let this fall apart now, he has to keep going, keep up the impression of tenderness. Lucifer marshals all of his willpower, uses it to hold himself in place until Dean is finally ready. He could speed it up with his grace, but that’s not the point. The point is to draw it out.

Finally, Lucifer pulls off Dean with a groan, hones in on Cas’s self-hatred and despair and uses it to steady himself.

“How do you want to do this?” Lucifer asks, not needing to fake a desperate, wrecked tone.

“Face to face.” Dean answers without hesitation. “Wanna kiss you.”

_Hear that, Cas? He wants to kiss you, look you in the eye while you make love._

_Don’t._ Cas claws his way back to some semblance of situational awareness just to brokenly spit out the same tired plea. He’ll be wishing he hadn’t in a moment, be wishing he was still just trapped in a mess of frenzied sensation.

Lucifer carefully schools his expression as Dean turns to face him, paints it sloppy and delighted and lust-drunk, of a matching set with Dean’s.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Noncon and dubcon
> 
> Again, Dean is totally on board for this, but it's dubcon because he doesn't know the full picture. Cas is very obviously not happy with events, and Lucifer is having a great time, as per.


	30. Chapter 30

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See end of the chapter for warnings

“How do you want to do this?” Cas asks, running his hands up Dean’s thighs as he waits for an answer.

“Face to face.” Dean answers without hesitation. “Wanna kiss you.”

He turns to face Cas, drinks in the lust dazed, blissful smile on his face. God fucking knows how long it’s going to be before he looks like that again, and Dean wants to have a vivid mental image of it, just in case.

Cas reaches out, pulls Dean close and mouths at his neck. Dean allows it for a few moments, and then he reaches down and wraps his hand around Cas’s cock, gives it one pump, two. And then he lowers himself down onto it.

They groan in tandem, and Cas grabs hold of Dean’s face, kisses him quick and bruising while they wait for him to adjust. It’s not long before Dean’s ready, he rolls his hips, lets Cas know that it’s okay to start moving. He does, rests his hand on Dean’s waist and starts slow but quickly builds to something more desperate than gentle. Dean doesn’t care, meets every thrust until he’s shaking.

Cas’s hands lift up to stroke at Dean’s neck, and Dean kisses him hungrily, able to tell by Cas’s faltering rhythm that he’s about to come. Cas takes Dean’s cock in hand, doesn’t even have to start pumping it before Dean’s shuddering, coming over his chest in a crescendoing wave of bliss.

“I love you. I fucking love you, Cas.”

Cas pushes Dean down onto his back on the bed, thrusts aggressively, once, twice, comes into the relaxed, pliant body beneath him. He pulls out, leans forward and captures Dean’s lips in a kiss with too many teeth and a hint of something that tastes oddly like sulphur.

“Oh, Dean. Cas hasn’t been here for a _long_ time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Noncon and dubcon
> 
> Again, Dean doesn't know what's g'warnin so dubcon, and there's poor, fucked up Cas.


	31. Chapter 31

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See end of chapter for warnings

Cas screams when Dean lowers himself down on Lucifer’s cock. An animal noise of despair and hatred, low and loud and oh so broken.

Lucifer tries to ask him if he wants to use the veto, but he can’t make himself heard over the din. That’s fine, though. He only asks Cas to hurt him, doesn’t think he really needs to – or could – make this worse right now.

Still, he keeps up the commentary anyway, on the off chance that Cas can actually hear him. Besides, it’s fun, whether he’s being listened to or not.

_This is mine now. Your first confession, your first kiss, your first tender fuck. And, by the way Dean’s practically vibrating around my cock as he waits until he can move, it’s going to be your first passionate one as well._

_I own this. Every time you look at Dean’s thighs, at his neck and chest, you’ll see the marks I bit there. Every time you look at his hair, you’ll see my hands in it. Every time you see his cock, you’ll remember my fingers wrapped around it. Every time you see his lips, they’ll be framing my throbbing cock. Every time you see his ass, it’ll be being split in two by me._

_I own the intimacies of the person you love the most, and you’ll never get them back._

Lucifer rocks his hips gently, kisses Dean and brings his hands up to Dean’s neck. A gentle grip, but one that gets Cas’s attention.

_And as for Dean, well, he’s going to die happy._ Lucifer threatens, and Cas can feel the intent to squeeze, to throttle. To kill him.

_VETO!_ He screams with every ounce of himself, desperate.

_You veto me killing Dean?_

_Yes._ Cas chokes out, guiltily, hideously relieved to have finally got it over and done with.

_Agreed. I won’t kill Dean, no matter what happens._

And now that he’s no longer trapped by that promise of redemption, Cas does what he’s wanted to do since the Bahamas.

He leaves his vessel.

Or, rather, he tries.

Because Lucifer isn’t stupid, Lucifer knew this would happen sooner or later. Which is why, when Cas was unconscious, he seared a binding sigil into their ribs.

_Oh, Cas. You’re in far too deep to leave this now._

Lucifer pumps Dean’s cock, savours the sensations of him coming apart.

“I love you. I fucking love you, Cas.”

Lucifer pushes Dean onto his back, thrusts aggressively into him and comes. He kisses Dean, and this time he doesn’t try and mask the rot of hell lingering on his tongue.

“Oh, Dean. Cas hasn’t been here for a _long_ time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Noncon and dubcon
> 
> Cas is not having a great time. I LOVE HIM REALLY I PROMISE


	32. Chapter 32

The information takes a moment to process, a frozen second in which Dean is paralysed as he tries to parse what those words mean. And then he gets it, and he lunges forwards, is stopped by a familiar kind of too great strength.

Not-Cas pushes his shoulders down, grins a huge, cruel grin. One that Dean has seen before, on a different face.

On Sam’s face.

He retches, tries to throw up, but Lucifer doesn’t let him. He places a hand, Cas’s hand, familiar and gently calloused, on Dean’s chest, forces the physical symptoms of the horror away. He does nothing for the mental ones, the fear and the shame and the disgust. That wasn’t Cas. Dean just let the devil fuck him, offered the devil his heart and soul and body. And the devil took it.

This is how good things happen to Dean Winchester. They don’t.

“He’s in here, you know.” Lucifer says, idly, still straddling Dean’s naked form. “He sees everything that I see, feels everything that I feel.”

Dean flinches.

“He did _not_ enjoy what we just did.”

That’s all it takes to push Dean over the edge, into that familiar anger. Self-hatred isn’t a useful emotion in a fight, but fury is, and he’s been using one to tame the other for years.

He lashes out, tries to punch Lucifer. His hand is caught, twisted backwards until he howls in pain.

“You are sending some very mixed messages. I love Castiel, I want to punch Castiel. Which is it?”

Another wave of nausea washes over Dean, kills off the rage entirely and leaves just fucking numbness in its place. It’s too much. He’s finally tapped out his capacity to feel. Took fucking long enough.

 “You...” Dean tries to say something, retort or fight back. He has nothing.

“Me.” Lucifer agrees.

Dean feels lost, ungrounded. The devil has Cas and he doesn’t know how or why it jumped from him to Sam.

Or.

No.

“Cas?” He grunts, “Cas you listenin’? I don’t know how he tricked you into this, but you gotta fight.”

“Oh, Dean.” Lucifer grins. “I didn’t trick him. This was his _choice._ ”

Lucifer lets go of Dean’s arm, takes his face in hand and presses their foreheads together. And then he gives Dean his memories.

They flash rapidly through the greatest hits: Cas saying yes, Cas’s body being used to slaughter humans and angels as Cas begs for it to stop, every conversation where Lucifer uses Cas’s love for Dean to taunt and torture him, every little flinch and reaction of Cas’s, right up until the point where Lucifer scuffs a devil’s trap in a Kansas warehouse and Dean takes a tumble.

And, surprisingly, it’s not the betrayal that hurts the most. It’s the _despair._

“No.” Dean whispers, and then again, a little louder, a little firmer. “No.”

“Do you want to hear what he’s saying now, Dean?”

Dean shakes his head frantically, pulls himself up the bed and covers himself with the duvet, away from Lucifer, away from, away from Cas. He sits there, knees curled up so they’re touching his forehead, shivering.

“Did I break you?” Lucifer asks, with a bored little sneer.

“Not quite.” Dean says, and his voice is shaking, but it doesn’t fucking matter. He throws back the duvet, reveals the wobbly, just about workable sigil drawn in his own blood, and slaps his hand into the centre.

There’s light, a spark, no effect.

 “Those don’t work on me.” Lucifer states the obvious.

“Wasn’t trying to banish you.” Dean says through gritted teeth.

“You were trying to banish Castiel? Free him from me?” Lucifer laughs, delighted. “Neat. But, unfortunately, I’ve taken steps to make sure he’s never getting loose. Tough luck.”

And then he vanishes.

All the energy goes out of Dean and he slumps down on the bed. He knows he has to get the ball rolling on this, start saving Cas, but right now, he can’t make himself get up.

There’s the sound of rustling feathers, and Lucifer reappears.

“I forgot, one memory that I missed. I mean, weren’t you starting to wonder what’d happened to Sam?”


	33. Chapter 33

Dean freezes for a moment, a delicious picture of fucked out confusion, sweat and come drying on his skin.

The realisation spreads across his face like ink in water, a widening of the eyes, a turn of the lips – and then he’s all motion, lunging upwards in attack only to be pushed back onto the bed by Lucifer.

Lucifer who sloughs off all traces of Castiel and lets himself be seen by Dean, properly, for the first time since he took this vessel.

Dean retches, and Lucifer, unwilling to be covered in vomit no matter how upsetting screaming, howling, crying Castiel might find it – heals away the physical symptoms.

He does nothing for the actual horror.

Dean and Cas mirror each other now. Both as full of self-hatred as it is possible to be. Except, well, Dean still has a sliver of hope. Dean still thinks, still desperately wills himself to believe, that this is his torment and not Cas’s.

“He’s in here, you know.” Lucifer says, idly, still straddling Dean’s naked form. “He sees everything that I see, feels everything that I feel.”

Dean flinches, and so does Cas. They’re in tandem, mirrored, and it’s adorable.

“He did _not_ enjoy what we just did.”

Lucifer goads, and Dean rises to it, lashes out as though he really thinks his hands are enough to fight off all the evils of the world. First a demon, now the devil himself. Is there any problem Dean doesn’t try and fail to solve with his fists?

Lucifer catches his punch, vindictively twists until Dean screams in pain.

“You are sending some very mixed messages. I love Castiel, I want to punch Castiel. Which is it?”

That clearly strikes a nerve, as Lucifer sees Dean’s fight ebb away. He sighs in disappointment. He expected a little more – more questioning, more railing and begging. Stoic disbelief or furious rage or something. Not more fucking calm, placid disappointment. He’s getting enough of that from Castiel.

Still, he’s got a few tricks up his proverbial sleeve, so no matter.

“You...” Dean sounds adrift, unmoored.

“Me.” Lucifer agrees, wonders if it’s time to start nudging at Castiel again.

And then there’s a flicker of something in Dean’s eye. A gathering of himself, maybe, now that the initial helplessness has given way to an opportunity to think. Interesting.

“Cas? Cas you listenin’? I don’t know how he tricked you into this, but you gotta fight.”

“Oh, Dean.”  Time to pop that bubble. “I didn’t trick him. This was his _choice._ ”

Lucifer presses their foreheads together, throws at Dean a tangle of the events of the last few weeks – from the battle in the cage to the moment that Dean was knocked unconscious by the demon in the devil’s trap.

“No.” He sounds so broken, quiet and bemused.

“Do you want to hear what he’s saying now, Dean?” Lucifer taunts, even though Cas is saying nothing, just murmuring a low, hollow chant.

Dean pulls himself away from under Lucifer, scrambles up the bed. Lucifer lets him go, curious to see if he’ll try and escape. He doesn’t. He just pulls the duvet up over himself, sits there, knees curled up so they’re touching his forehead, shivering.

“Did I break you?” It’s a relief not to have to hide the sneer anymore, frankly.

“Not quite.” Dean says, and his voice might be wobbly, but there’s something about it – something bold and triumphant.

Dean throws back the duvet, reveals the banishing sigil he’d hastily painted in blood drawn from a fresh, dripping wound on his arm. He slams his palm down on it with a yell.

Lucifer feels it like the hum of a distant thunderstorm. Atmospheric pressure, but not much else.

“Those don’t work on me.” Lucifer drawls, even though that much should be clear.

“Wasn’t trying to banish you.” Dean grunts out like the Neanderthal he is.

_This is too precious. He’s trying to save_ you.

_There’s no saving me._

Lucifer laughs. This is so utterly, giddily perfect.

And he’s not even done.

“You were trying to banish Castiel? Free him from me? Neat. But, unfortunately, I’ve taken steps to make sure he’s never getting loose. Tough luck.”

And then he makes himself invisible.

Cas notices, doesn’t even have the energy to question what Lucifer is planning now. Instead he just watches as Dean slumps on the bed, too fucked up to gather himself for the fight.

_Congratulations._  Cas manages. _You broke him._

_Oh, honey, you ain’t seen nothing yet._

_You can’t kill him._ Cas regains a touch of his formerly frantic worry.

_There are fates far worse than death._

And that brings a fresh stab of beautiful, delicious panic. Oh, Lucifer is going to enjoy this.

_You can’t—_

_That’s where you’re wrong._ He interrupts. _I can do anything I want._

Lucifer reappears with a rustle of feathers.

“I forgot, one memory that I missed. I mean, weren’t you starting to wonder what’d happened to Sam?”

Lucifer licks a stripe along Dean’s cheek, enjoys the flinches from both inside and out.

And he passes on a memory.


	34. Chapter 34

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~see endnotes for warning~

Sam wakes up groggy and confused. It’s not unusual for him to come to consciousness tied to a chair though, so he takes it in his stride. He pulls in a few deep breaths, rolls his shoulders and checks the ties that bind his ankles and wrists together.

No give, which, yeah. Not good. He tries to remember where he was before this, what could possibly have led to him being trapped here. There’s nothing sinister. He wasn’t on a hunt – he was in the bunker in the library.

The door opens, and the fear dissolves at the sight of Cas’s familiar face.

“Hey, Cas.” He groans out, not bothering to hide the relief. “Am I glad to see you.”

Cas nods, smiles a long, slow smile. It looks uncomfortable on his face.

“Sam Winchester.” He says, in a smug, caustic tone.

Sam tenses. He trusts his gut, and now very suddenly his gut tells him that this isn’t Cas. A shifter, an illusion. Not Cas, though. Definitely not Cas. Of course it wouldn’t be, that would be too goddamn easy.

“Who are you?”

“Castiel, angel of the lord.”

“No you aren’t.”

Cas snorts and rolls his eyes.

“You don’t believe me? I’m wounded.”

“You’re a shifter—”

Cas laughs, takes a step back and unveils his broken wings. His eyes briefly flash grace-blue and then he’s back to normal, unassuming and human looking.

Sam’s mouth is dry, brain whirring along at an almost audible rate as he takes all the pieces and tries to fit them together. Cas – because it must be Cas, no other angel can wear Jimmy Novak – the restraints, the slightly off way he’s smiling.

“You’re confused.” Cas notes, as he draws his angel blade.

Sam vaguely hopes he’s about to get his restraints cut, but somehow he knows that isn’t going to happen.

Cas draws the knife across Sam’s cheek, one short line and then another. Sam hisses in pain.

“Cas?”

“There’s no need to sound so distressed.”

“Is this a ritual?” Sam knows he’s grasping at straws, but this is Cas. There has to be an explanation.

Cas rolls his eyes, carves more lines across Sam’s face in short, sharp slashes. When he’s done he takes Sam’s fingers, trails them over the wounds so that he can feel the shape of them.

“Can you tell what it says?”

“No.” Sam doesn’t bother to mask his pain, lets the word come out short and bitten off.

“It says, ‘abomination’.”

Sam doesn’t know how to reply to that.

“Aren’t you going to ask me what’s going on, Sam?”

And he bites, because there has to be something – some reason.

“What’s going on, Cas?”

“I’m withdrawing.”

“Withdrawing?” That makes no sense. Withdrawing from where, and why?

“My mission is over.”

“What mission?” There’s a catch of dread in Sam’s chest. Something he doesn’t want to believe, but which he can’t help skating at the edge of.

Cas laughs, runs his finger along his blade and baptises Sam with a bloody cross.

“My mission for heaven.”

“But—”

“I mean, things have been going wrong for you for so long. Did you never suspect you had someone sabotaging you?”

Sam shakes his head, frantic. “No, you’re our friend – our brother.”

Cas quirks his lip, runs his hand through Sam’s hair and then grabs hold of it, uses it to wind his head around in gentle circles. “Well”, he says in a slow, patronising tone, “I wouldn’t have been a very good spy if you didn’t trust me, would I?”

“But, you went against heaven.” Sam grasps at logical straws.

“No, Sam. I _am_ heaven. The apocalypse was a messy business, but I needed to get rid of Michael somehow, and you were _very_ obliging.”

“But—”

“And afterwards, well. If it’d been up to me I would’ve left you both to it. You to be tortured to insanity and Dean to die miserably in obscurity – his days were numbered and he wasn’t being any trouble. But well, something came up. So I pulled you out of hell, set you back on the path and tagged along to watch.”

Something about this doesn’t fit. It can’t. Even throwing aside everything else, Cas betrayed them before, you don’t betray someone you’re trying to infiltrate. Not until the end , anyway.

“But Crowley, purgatory—”

“I’m not saying I didn’t make mistakes, get a little power hungry, but I could always rely on Dean to let me back in, even when you had your doubts. It’s amazing what you can do with a good, pathetic dose of unrequited love.”

“No, I’ve seen the way you look at him, I don’t believe you.”

Cas ignores him, carries on talking. “I didn’t even need to hijack a cupid. He just tumbled and fell. Sacrilege must be in your genes – one abomination by blood, and one who threw himself into it for a pretty face.” His lip curls and he sneers. “As if I’d ever let Dean touch me.”

Sam’s prickling hot and cold all over. He can’t believe this, he won’t.

But he does. He does believe it, and he can’t understand it – how, or why. But he believes it. There’s a conviction in Cas’s eyes, in his tone, that Sam doesn’t know how to refute.

It’s his last thought, before Cas’s hand moves from the back of his neck to his forehead, and burns him to dust.

 

*

 

Dean breaks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> MCD
> 
>  
> 
> (SORRY SAM but at least he only suffered a teeny lil bit)


	35. Chapter 35

This time the memory Lucifer shunts into Dean’s head isn’t his own. It was a delicate thing, extracting this from Sam’s mind in the moments before he expired, but it’s going to be worth it. Watching Sam fall apart through Lucifer’s eyes would hurt Dean, sure. But this, this is the crowning glory. Living Sam’s death with him, well. It’s going to destroy Dean, totally and utterly.

It’s funny, Lucifer had watched Sam for a while as he waited for him to wake up. You expect people to look gentler when they’re unconscious, defences lowered, all that. Not Sam. He’d looked harsher – no effort going into making his huge bulk unthreatening. Just a sleeping bear, all great lumbering strength couched in inactivity.

And Lucifer had loved him in that moment, in some dark and bitter way. But it hadn’t been enough to stay his hand – Sam had outlived his usefulness, there was no need to keep him around. It was enough to lean him towards mercy, though. Sam wouldn’t suffer the same kind of revenge as his brother and Castiel. He would still suffer a little, though. He wasn’t quite forgiven for betraying his great destiny.

Still, if Sam had given himself fully to Lucifer the first time, then Lucifer wouldn’t have Castiel, wouldn’t have his full angelic strength.

 _The lord works in mysterious ways._ Lucifer informs Cas, with a snicker, as in the memory Sam starts to stir.

 _What did you do?_ Cas manages to groan out, rough voiced and shaky.

_Me and Sam had a little party. Well, no, actually. You and Sam did._

Hey, Cas. Am I glad to see you.”

_He’s not lying, just look at that face, pure and utter relief. Won’t be like that for long, unfortunately._

Cas doesn’t respond, tries to curl in on himself and ignore the memory Lucifer is shoving at him. He’s done what he can, he just wants to be gone. This is his limit – Dean is alive, whatever happened to Sam is in the past and he can’t change that. He can’t watch Lucifer reveal himself to Sam, watch Sam’s trust be shattered all over again. Can’t watch whatever comes after.

Lucifer, of course, has other ideas. He forces the memory at Cas, stuffs it down his throat and in his eyes, envelops Cas with it, so there’s nowhere he can turn, no part of his own body he can bury himself inside.

_Oh, Cas. You have no idea._

“Sam Winchester.”

_See, there. I fucked up. Look at him go tense. He knows it isn’t you. Sam knows me better than Dean does. I put a little bit too much of myself into that smile, got carried away. And he noticed – not consciously, luckily for us. But his subconscious was clued up enough to realise he wasn’t talking to you._

“Who are you?”

“Castiel, angel of the lord.”

“No you aren’t.”

 “You don’t believe me? I’m wounded.”

“You’re a shifter—”

_It’s a shame he wasn’t listening to his subconscious._

In the memory Lucifer laughs, flashes his eyes and flicks out Castiel’s wings – broken and threadbare.

_You’ve no idea how disgusting that was, picking through your rotten grace and pretending those scraggly chicken wings were mine._

Lucifer knows that Cas is too far gone for a sarcastic comment, but he still waits for it, sighs dramatically when it doesn’t arrive.

Never mind, feeling Sam’s emotions is good enough. His little puzzled puppy bemusement as he takes all of the pieces he’s been given and tries to jam them together.

Lucifer wishes he’d savoured the moment a little longer when it was actually happening, but there were constraints. Would Castiel wake up and ruin the fun, would that idiot demon decide to harm Dean? He had to rush this, and how he hates rushing things.

“You’re confused.”

Lucifer says in the memory, as he summons up his angel blade. Not Cas’s – Sam won’t be able to tell the difference, and Lucifer isn’t touching Cas’s tainted, dirty instrument unless he has to.

He flips the weapon in his hand just like Cas does, enjoys Sam’s little flinch.

And watching the memory, Cas flinches too.

_That got your attention, didn’t it?_

_You said you wouldn’t hurt Sam._

_I’m not doing anything to Sam. You are._

In the memory Lucifer stops playing with the blade, scores three quick lines into Sam’s cheek. A capital ‘A’.

“Cas?”

“There’s no need to sound so distressed.”

“Is this a ritual?”

 _Oh bless._ Lucifer sneers. _Even now he wants to believe the best in you. Can’t quite believe you’re carving up his face for fun._

In the memory Lucifer carries on going, spells out the word ‘abomination’. It’s gruesome and uneven, blood distorting the letters.

_You called him that, remember? He certainly does. He still thinks about it sometimes._

_I didn’t mean—_

_Yes, you did. Don’t lie._

_I didn’t know him._

_And yet you never apologised._

Lucifer waits for a reply, tuts when one isn’t forthcoming.  It takes mention of Dean to draw another response from Cas, of course.

“It’s amazing what you can do with a good, pathetic dose of unrequited love.”

_Not going to tell me off for calling him pathetic?_

“No, I’ve seen the way you look at him, I don’t believe you.”

“I didn’t even need to hijack a cupid. He just tumbled and fell. Sacrilege must be in your genes – one abomination by blood, and one who threw himself into it for a pretty face.” His lip curls and he sneers. “As if I’d ever let Dean touch me.”

Cas groans, snaps his teeth together. _Dean isn’t the unclean one here._

_You’re all unclean. Filthy, disgusting animals._

And as if he was waiting for a punchline, Lucifer presses a gentle touch to Sam’s forehead, and burns him out of existence.

 

*

 

Cas groans, long and low. He and Sam were friends. Good friends. That he should die in agony – that he should die believing it’s at Cas’s hand. It cuts so deep he almost doesn’t feel it. A numb, dull ache that will inevitably solidify into something so much more as Lucifer taunts and teases and wrings every bitter drop of joy he can from this.

But Lucifer isn’t paying attention to Cas now. He’s keyed on to Dean.

Dean, who breaks.

But it’s still not enough.

There are – _were_ – three things that give Dean Winchester’s life meaning. Sam, Cas, and hunting.

Lucifer has two, and if he were leave Dean now, he’d be leaving a job part done.

And if he was feeling boring and uncreative, he’d take Dean’s hands in his, wind their fingers together and watch the confusion spread across his pretty little face as Lucifer’s grip started to tighten. He’d savour the delicious screams as he crushed the bones in Dean’s hand, obliterated beyond the healing powers of anything but an archangel.

But of course that wouldn’t be enough, because Dean would still have hope, still have something. So Lucifer would press a kiss to each eyelid, and rob him off his sight too.  He’d leave Dean alone on the bed, helpless, destroyed.

Too.

Easy.

Instead he takes Dean by the scruff of the neck, flies them to the gates of hell, the liminal space in which the cage resides. It’s still there, still hungry and clamouring for the return of its runaway prisoner.

Well, we can’t be having that.

Lucifer bathes Dean in his grace, pushes him against the cage well, cheek sizzling and burning with hellfire and god’s light.

Castiel screams, a howl of wordless, impotent, terrified rage.

 _Should’ve saved that veto, huh?_ Lucifer asks, but he doesn’t get a response. Doesn’t expect one either as, to a serenade of sizzling fat, he intones a few words of a spell from the book of the damned, and whispers the last words Dean will ever hear in Castiel’s voice.

“Michael’s really missed you.”

 

*

 

Eventually, days later, on a beach in Florida surrounded by blood and shattered lumps of skeleton, Cas scrapes enough of himself back together to talk. And what he says, blessed broken fucking record that he is, the first words he grits out through phantom teeth are:

“Please, can we go after Amara now?”

Lucifer laughs, long and hard. When he eventually calms down he snorts, picks a bit of bloody gristle out from between his teeth and flicks it on the sand.

 “I thought you’d seen through that a long time ago. I was never going to fight Amara. Choose your battles, Castiel – that’s one I know I won’t win. Besides, you really think that God is going to let his little baby sister unpick the whole of his creation? Unlikely.”

_Oh._

“That’s all I get?”

_You’ve taken everything else._

“Good.”

And now, now that he’s finally got what he wanted, Lucifer grants Cas his first request.

Silence.

He unpicks his atoms, piece by piece, scatters them around Jimmy Novak’s body.

The body needs Cas’s presence to keep it from disintegrating, nowhere do the rules say he has to be in one piece.

Lucifer _wins._

The end.

_Bye._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> STOP THROWING ROCKS AT ME. All hate mail and complaints can be addressed to Deanirae because this is entirely her fault ;) Yes, yes I am pulling the “but missssssss another girl made me do it” excuse. ;P
> 
> If you enjoyed this but hated the ending, can I recommend you check out This House is Full of Noise, and Chemical. Which are both evil, but do at least give you some kind of ~things are gonna be okay~ closure ;) 
> 
> Upcoming projects to look out for include White Rabbit; the sequel to Chemical, and This Is a Gift, It Comes with a Price; a S7 au in which a deal is made and a secret is kept.
> 
> A special thank you to everyone who left comments and kudos and generally encouraged me, without all of you this would never have morphed from a coda to so much more. THANKS GUYS <33 I PROMISE THE NEXT PROJECT WILL BE NICER (but not toooooooo nice)

**Author's Note:**

> Please comment, kudos, reblog etc I'm needy writer trash and I need the validation okay. I'm doing this for free, the warm fuzzies are my only payment. LOVE ME <33
> 
>  
> 
> [Tumblr post](http://rabidbinbadger.tumblr.com/post/146682623430/title-the-view-from-here-isnt-better-fandom)


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